The Hazards of Belief

Bannasidhe

FouxDaFaFa wrote: »

Wasn't sure if this should go in Scandals or here.

Apparently, there's a group of young Muslim men roaming the streets of Whitechapel in London, a self-proclaimed "Muslim Patrol". Duties include general harrassment and beating the sh1t out of anyone who looks like they might be gay.

They are so going to get such a kicking if they encounter a group of East End Dykes.

There was a similar little gang in Limerick a few years ago - they picked on a friend of mine as she was walking home.

They thought she was alone.

They failed to see that the entire pack of the Munster Women's rugby team were close by, a pack that took serious exception to their scrum half being attacked....:cool:

legspin

Bannasidhe wrote: »

They are so going to get such a kicking if they encounter a group of East End Dykes.

There was a similar little gang in Limerick a few years ago - they picked on a friend of mine as she was walking home.

They thought she was alone.

They failed to see that the entire pack of the Munster Women's rugby team were close by, a pack that took serious exception to their scrum half being attacked....:cool:

I'd say it was like being attacked by The Luggage.

Bannasidhe

legspin wrote: »

I'd say it was like being attacked by The Luggage.

The Luggage would have been more merciful.

legspin

Bannasidhe wrote: »

The Luggage would have been more merciful.

I was just reminded of this..

The chimera's technique was to swoop low over the prey, lightly boiling it with its fiery breath, and then turn and rend its dinner with its teeth. It managed the fire part but then, at the point where experience told the creature it should be facing a stricken and terrified victim, found itself on the ground in the path of a scorched and furious Luggage.
The only thing incandescent about the Luggage was its rage. It had spent several hours with a headache, during which it seemed the whole world had tried to attack it. It had had enough.
When it had stamped the unfortunate chimera into a greasy puddle on the sand, it paused for a moment, apparently considering its future . . .
[Sourcery]

robindch

^^^ Just by the by, did anybody here see Sky's "The Color of Magic"? All in all, I thought it was a pretty good adaption, but opinions may differ

Bannasidhe

robindch wrote: »

^^^ Just by the by, did anybody here see Sky's "The Color of Magic"? All in all, I thought it was a pretty good adaption, but opinions may differ

Thought Sky did a fair enough adaption - better then that animated version of Wyrd Sisters.

kylith

I've preferred Sky's later ones. I'm not keen on TCOM, mostly because I think that David Jason has no place playing Rincewind.

legspin

I would have to agree about Del Boy as Rincewind. Going Postal and The Hogfather were good enough romps but I am of the opinion that until such time as they cast the Librarian correctly it will never really take off.

As an aside I always imagined Paul O'Connell would be a great look for Carrot. Unfortunatly, the Limerick accent somewhat spoils the effect.

Bannasidhe

kylith wrote: »

I've preferred Sky's later ones. I'm not keen on TCOM, mostly because I think that David Jason has no place playing Rincewind.

God (:p) yes, Del Boy was all wrong for Rincewind - I see him more as a young Nigel Planer.

I have nightmares of the casting of Granny Weatherwax should that day ever arrive.

legspin

Bannasidhe wrote: »

God (:p) yes, Del Boy was all wrong for Rincewind - I see him more as a young Nigel Planer.

I have nightmares of the casting of Granny Weatherwax should that day ever arrive.

Rhys Ifans was one I thought the role might suit.

Esme is a sticky one alright.

Bannasidhe

legspin wrote: »

Rhys Ifans was one I thought the role might suit.

Esme is a sticky one alright.

Ifans - yes!

Maggie Smith maybeee for Esme but....

swampgas

Granny Weatherwax, Sam Vimes and Vetinari are such vivid characters in my imagination that if a film were made including any or all of them I would be afraid to watch it, purely from of a sense of mental self-preservation. I don't care how good the actor/actress might be, they're not the character in my head!

Mark Hamill

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Maggie Smith maybeee for Esme but....

I think Maggie Smith would be awful as Granny Weatherwax, she's too frail looking and shrill sounding to fill her boots, so to speak.

Bannasidhe

Mark Hamill wrote: »

I think Maggie Smith would be awful as Granny Weatherwax, she's too frail looking and shrill sounding to fill her boots, so to speak.

True. I was thinking in terms of her excellent withering look and glacial stare.

legspin

Bannasidhe wrote: »

True. I was thinking in terms of her excellent withering look and glacial stare.

I was thinking maybe Helen Mirren. After all, she was Morgan La Fey.

endacl

Laydees and gennulmen!

I give you.......



The Librarian!

Gbear

swampgas wrote: »

Granny Weatherwax, Sam Vimes and Vetinari are such vivid characters in my imagination that if a film were made including any or all of them I would be afraid to watch it, purely from of a sense of mental self-preservation. I don't care how good the actor/actress might be, they're not the character in my head!

Charles Dance(Tywin Lannister from GoT) was brilliantly cast as Vetinari in Going Postal at any rate. That's the only one I've seen and it's quite good.

legspin

Gbear wrote: »

Charles Dance(Tywin Lannister from GoT) was brilliantly cast as Vetinari in Going Postal at any rate. That's the only one I've seen and it's quite good.

His manner as Havelock was marvelous but his colouring was all wrong and he was too bulky, Vetinari being known for his thiness and dark colouring. Jeremy Irons played him in an earlier one (TCOM?) and had the Look of Vetinari but not quite the manner.

PTerry has said he imagined Alan Rickman for the role.

swampgas

legspin wrote: »

His manner as Havelock was marvelous but his colouring was all wrong and he was too bulky, Vetinari being known for his thiness and dark colouring. Jeremy Irons played him in an earlier one (TCOM?) and had the Look of Vetinari but not quite the manner.

PTerry has said he imagined Alan Rickman for the role.

Hmmm - I could go with Alan Rickman as Vetinari.

(Now miles off topic, but this is A&A ... I guess Terry Pratchet is always on-topic)

seamus

endacl wrote: »

The Librarian!

Totally off topic, but extra funny for futurama fans (I'm sure there are one or two here...)

The Mad Hatter

robindch wrote: »

^^^ Just by the by, did anybody here see Sky's "The Color of Magic"? All in all, I thought it was a pretty good adaption, but opinions may differ

Going Postal was pretty good. In general, I think they're a good demonstration of why liberties should be taken with adaptations - Pratchett's humour, very often, is in wordplay and description, which doesn't translate to the screen at all. When they did The Hogfather, I think it failed largely because it was a more-or-less straight adaptation from book to screen, and so came off as just a weird low-budget fantasy (with the best joke having been a visual one: the wizards' "computer" complete with ant-powered processor by Anthill Inside). But the more they've done their own jokes, the better it's come off.

I quite liked The Colour of Magic/The Light Fantastic. David Jason was horribly miscast as Rincewind (though iirc he acted as producer, so possibly had a little sway in the casting), but Sean Astin was perfect as Twoflower.

pauldla

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

I quite liked The Colour of Magic/The Light Fantastic. David Jason was horribly miscast as Rincewind (though iirc he acted as producer, so possibly had a little sway in the casting), but Sean Astin was perfect as Twoflower.

I was under the impression it was something of a vanity project? He'd always wanted to place Rincewind, etc. Yes, I agree, he was horribly miscast; I couldn't watch it. And yes, Sean Astin was perfect as Twoflower!

Links234

Gbear wrote: »

Charles Dance(Tywin Lannister from GoT) was brilliantly cast as Vetinari in Going Postal at any rate. That's the only one I've seen and it's quite good.

Going Postal was the best adaptation so far. I thought Charles Dance was great, and can't fault him because he didn't exactly look the part, because everything else was so spot on about him.

Couldn't stand Colour of Magic because of the way Jason played Rincewind, he did it all so very pantomime. it was awful!

always imagined David Thewlis as Rincewind 'cos he could easy do that soggy/worried/desperate face that I associate with Rincewind:

robindch

The church in Germany takes a beating over its treatment of victims of rape, its merry disregard for public oversight and its assertion of its own beliefs over the public good.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-politicians-fight-catholic-church-power-over-public-institutions-a-879198.html

Der Spiegel wrote:

The origins of the Cellitine sisters and their beneficial ministry date back to late 13th-century Cologne, when the nuns devoted themselves to the "care of the sick, the weak and the poor."

Their original mission has expanded into a corporation encompassing 16 nursing homes and 10 hospitals. The only problem is that care is precisely what has been lacking there recently. Wanting nothing to do with a possible early termination of a pregnancy, doctors working for the Cellitines turned away a woman who was seeking help shortly before Christmas, despite the strong suspicion that she had been raped. Last week, the order publicly downplayed the case when it made national news, calling it "very regrettable" and "a misunderstanding."

Turning away rape victims can hardly be called a misunderstanding. On January 10, Sylvia Klauser, the order's chief ethics officer, explained to an emergency doctor the hospitals' procedures for handling rape victims. The notes the doctor made on the conversation reveal an astonishing aspect of the order's policy: As long as patients who have been raped are "responsive and capable of being moved," they are to be transferred "to a city facility." The apparent goal of the policy is to ensure that the nuns and doctors will not be confronted with a possible abortion.

The case reveals how far the Roman Catholic Church has distanced itself from German society, especially -- but not only -- in the area of sexuality. Catholic facilities are increasingly sealing themselves off, often behaving as if they were part of a state within a state; a cosmos subject to its own rules, which are monitored by the pope and his bishops; and a world in which federal, state and local governments have little say.

Every year, Catholic dioceses receive billions in funds from obligatory taxes paid by church members. But when it comes to scandals, such as when sexual abuse is systematically covered up and remains uninvestigated for years, citizens have little influence and are left to experience how the church energetically defends its special rights.

The process of alienation is well advanced, and it would be a mistake to treat it as merely a problem for Germany's few remaining churchgoers. In fact, it potentially affects millions of Germans. The church is involved in many areas of society, including kindergartens, schools, hospitals and nursing homes. It is the second-largest employer in the country, after the government. It dictates the kind of life its doctors, educators, teachers and cleaning women are allowed to lead. It determines how children are raised. And it also decides -- on its own authority -- how patients are to be treated or, in some cases, turned away.

"The scandalous incidents in Cologne sharply contradict the Christian social mission," says Sylvia Löhrmann, deputy governor of the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The Green Party politician is a member of the Central Committee of German Catholics, a forum in which she wants to see the incident addressed. "Not helping a woman who has been raped is a violation of human decency. In doing so, the church harms itself more than anything," says Löhrmann, who is also the state's education minister.

Avoiding the Morning-After Pill

The so-called "morning-after pill," a drug that can be administered to rape victims to prevent pregnancy, lies at the center of the controversy. On December 15, a 25-year-old woman came to an emergency medical facility in the Nippes neighborhood of Cologne, claiming that she had been raped. The doctor on duty, Irmgard Maiworm, treated the victim. She notified the police and prescribed the morning after pill.

Maiworm then informed the nearby St. Vincent Hospital, which is run by the Cellitine order, that she was transferring her patient there for evidence-gathering purposes. But her Catholic counterparts refused to help. The Hospital of the Holy Spirit, also run by the nuns, likewise turned down Maiworm's request. The doctors at the church-run hospitals told her that their ethical guidelines required them to reject the patients. "I could hardly believe it," Maiworm says. The Catholic doctors' reluctance is in keeping with the policies of Joachim Meisner, the conservative archbishop of Cologne. "Rape victims are transferred to other facilities," says his spokesman, "if the intention to take the 'morning-after pill' is evident."

Victims' rights groups are protesting. "Refusing to administer the morning-after pill to women who have been raped constitutes failure to render assistance, which is unjustified according to the Bible and incomprehensible according to Christian values," says Annegret Laakmann of the nationwide group Frauenwürde (Women's Dignity). "With this position, the official church is discriminating against raped women once again."

Anette Diehl of Frauennotruf Mainz, a women's emergency hotline, also wants to see a change in church policy. "A woman who has been raped needs comprehensive assistance right away. She can't simply be turned away for religious reasons in the middle of treatment and consultation."

Catholic organizations run some 420 hospitals throughout Germany. In their employment contracts, their roughly 165,000 employees are generally required to comply with the guidelines of bishops and the heads of religious orders. In fact, in some areas, the Catholic Church exerts a strong influence on the social welfare state. The church even has a monopoly in some rural areas, where it controls many facilities, from kindergartens to hospitals to nursing homes.

This complicates things for church employees. Since doctors, educators and caregivers often have no alternative to working for Catholic organizations, they are forced to comply with their guidelines.

[...]

http://coloradoindependent.com/126808/in-malpractice-case-catholic-hospital-argues-fetuses-arent-people

In the aftermath of the tragedy, Stodghill’s husband Jeremy, a prison guard, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit on behalf of himself and the couple’s then-two-year-old daughter Elizabeth. Staples should have made it to the hospital, his lawyers argued, or at least instructed the frantic emergency room staff to perform a caesarian-section. The procedure likely would not have saved the mother, a testifying expert said, but it may have saved the twins.

...

But when it came to mounting a defense in the Stodghill case, Catholic Health’s lawyers effectively turned the Church directives on their head. Catholic organizations have for decades fought to change federal and state laws that fail to protect “unborn persons,” and Catholic Health’s lawyers in this case had the chance to set precedent bolstering anti-abortion legal arguments. Instead, they are arguing state law protects doctors from liability concerning unborn fetuses on grounds that those fetuses are not persons with legal rights.

As Jason Langley, an attorney with Denver-based Kennedy Childs, argued in one of the briefs he filed for the defense, the court “should not overturn the long-standing rule in Colorado that the term ‘person,’ as is used in the Wrongful Death Act, encompasses only individuals born alive. Colorado state courts define ‘person’ under the Act to include only those born alive. Therefore Plaintiffs cannot maintain wrongful death claims based on two unborn fetuses.”

robindch

Deleted User wrote: »

Catholic organization argues fetuses aren't persons

Ah, but there was money involved. Big difference.

robindch

Bishops hear of the case. A press release ensues which falls rather short of firing the legal team.

http://www.archden.org/index.cfm/ID/9767

Archdiocese of Denver wrote:

The Catholic bishops of Colorado learned recently of the deaths of Lori Stodghill and her two unborn children, which took place at St. Thomas More Hospital in Cañon City, Colo. in 2006. We wish to extend our solidarity and sympathy to Lori’s husband Jeremy, and her daughter, Elizabeth. Please be assured of our ongoing prayers.

From the moment of conception, human beings are endowed with dignity and with fundamental rights, the most foundational of which is life.

Catholics and Catholic institutions have the duty to protect and foster human life, and to witness to the dignity of the human person—particularly to the dignity of the unborn. No Catholic institution may legitimately work to undermine fundamental human dignity.

Catholic Health Initiatives is a Catholic institution which provides health care services in 14 states, providing care to thousands of people annually. Catholic Health Initiatives has been accused by some of undermining the Catholic position on human life in the course of litigation. Today, representatives of Catholic Health Initiatives assured us of their intention to observe the moral and ethical obligations of the Catholic Church.

The Catholic bishops of Colorado are not able to comment on ongoing legal disputes. However, we will undertake a full review of this litigation, and of the policies and practices of Catholic Health Initiatives to ensure fidelity and faithful witness to the teachings of the Catholic Church.

biko

A muslim who raped a 13-year-old girl he groomed on Facebook has been spared a prison sentence after a judge heard he went to an Islamic faith school where he was taught that women are worthless.

Adil Rashid, 18, claimed he was not aware that it was illegal for him to have sex with the girl because his education left him ignorant of British law.

In other interviews with psychologists, Rashid claimed he had been taught in his school that ‘women are no more worthy than a lollipop that has been dropped on the ground’.

www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-2268395/Paedophile-groomed-victim-Facebook-claimed-Muslim-upbringing-meant-didnt-know-illegal-sex-13-year-old-girl.html

Bannasidhe

biko wrote: »

www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-2268395/Paedophile-groomed-victim-Facebook-claimed-Muslim-upbringing-meant-didnt-know-illegal-sex-13-year-old-girl.html

ummm...what happened to ignorance of the law is no defense?

May I just say - 'What Household Charge? Never heard of it'.

recedite

Well, he still gets a criminal conviction. It seems the judge thinks that in the perpetrator's naive/vulnerable/brainwashed mental state, time spent in prison would only send him down the wrong road, into a life of criminality.
The lollipop is a curious metaphor... it seems this particular "lollipop" wanted to be dropped on the ground, but he failed to recognise that the lollipop was not old enough to make that particular decision.

In a way, I can see how that happened. We know that very young girls are sometimes sent from Britain to Pakistan to be married off, and their "consent" is not something seen as being relevant. Mohommad himself had a child bride, but he married her, so that was OK. So from the perspective of this 18 year old muslim male, the only real offence was "having sex outside marriage". Possibly, in his mind, and seeing as she was up for it, he thought he would get away with that "sin" if he had a little pray immediately afterwards (which he did).

The whole episode just shows what kind of mess results when religious people who believe that their particular brand of god's law (sharia/canon...whatever) trumps secular law, and they are allowed to set up schools and indoctrinate kids to their warped way of thinking.

biko

If you haven't seen Dispatches Undercover Mosque now is a good time.

PopePalpatine

I'm a bit suspicious of that article, seeing as it comes from the Fail On Sunday.

biko

PopePalpatine wrote: »

I'm a bit suspicious of that article, seeing as it comes from the Fail On Sunday.

Do you think it was made up?

robindch

biko wrote: »

Do you think it was made up?

It's the Mail. It's almost certain the article is biassed and I'd have thought relatively likely that sections of it are invented, or at least, bent out of any kind of supporting context.

Gbear

Even in a broadsheet if you read about anything that you know something about or are an expert in you'll often notice an awful load of ****e being written that has no bearing on reality.

What does that tell about stories about which you know nothing?

MrPudding

Gbear wrote: »

Even in a broadsheet if you read about anything that you know something about or are an expert in you'll often notice an awful load of ****e being written that has no bearing on reality.

What does that tell about stories about which you know nothing?

This is something that really winds me up. I have a particular interest in legal stuff, and the amount of misrepresentation and outright lies that are published off the back of some judgements is quite astonishing.

Some of these are extremely blatant, like a newspaper (I'm looking at you Daily Telegraph) might have a headline screaming "Judge tells us X" and then when you actually read the case the judge has specifically said "I am in no way saying X."

Really quite bad.

MrP

MrPudding

MrPudding wrote: »

Some of these are extremely blatant, like a newspaper (I'm looking at you Daily Telegraph) might have a headline screaming "Judge tells us X" and then when you actually read the case the judge has specifically said "I am in no way saying X."

Really quite bad.

MrP

Yeah but judges are excellent of doing the opposite of what they say they want to etc.

MrPudding

Deleted User wrote: »

Yeah but judges are excellent of doing the opposite of what they say they want to etc.

Not quite sure what you mean here...

But let me give you a recent example of what I am talking about:

The Daily Telegraph wrote:

A new ruling by a High Court judge… says that Christians have no right to decline working on Sunday as it is not a “core component” of their beliefs. The judgment – which upholds an earlier decision – means that individual Christians do not have any protection from being fired for not working on Sundays.

Here is the actual ruling said:

Paragraph 3 of Ruling wrote:

We should make it clear at the outset of this Judgment to anyone who expects the conclusion to amount either to a ringing endorsement of an individual’s right not to be required to work on a Sunday on the one hand, or an employer’s freedom to require it on the other, that they will both be disappointed. No such broad general issue arises. The questions raised must be determined in the specific circumstances of this particular case alone.

This type of misrepresentation is all too common and is typically used to justify claims that religion is under threat. Other errors that are grossly misrepresented include European Court rulings, particularly on human rights issues and (slightly related) things like prisoner rights.

These papers appear to be against Europe and human rights and heavily pro religion, and they won't let something like the truth get in the way of their campaign.

MrP

DB21

The absolute worst are the "science" articles. Should I be fortunate enough to ever be published, I'll go out of my way and look at every paper that quotes my work and go after the ones that misrepresent whatever findings I've made.

MrPudding

DB21 wrote: »

The absolute worst are the "science" articles. Should I be fortunate enough to ever be published, I'll go out of my way and look at every paper that quotes my work and go after the ones that misrepresent whatever findings I've made.

I would agree that the science articles are bad, but bias aside, the legal misrepresentation is without doubt the worst.

Due to the misrepresentation of cases here in the UK "human rights" are dirty words. These papers, with whatever agenda they have, are painting human rights as something to be despised.

They are making people believe that there are laws, specifically, to prevent people from wearing crosses at work, they are making people believe that their religious rights are being attacked by both Europe and evil secularist within the UK.

Whilst mis-reporting of science is a bad thing mis-reporting of legal matters leads to a place where governments can have a mandate to restrict human rights because people have been fooled into thinking there is something wrong with them.

MrP

robindch

MrPudding wrote: »

"human rights" are dirty words

Have a read of any edition of "Alive!" -- they're full that kind of reprehensible misrepresentation. Popette, I need hardly add, literally turns red when she hears the term and thinks it's connected somehow with "political correctness" (usually "gone mad" of course).

It's almost painful to see somebody thinking in nothing but right-wing cliches.

robindch

Religion and politics on a flight to Israel:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-21185791

Paul Moss wrote:

It is not just the election results that show that Israelis have different views about who should be running the country: a flight to Tel Aviv can provide a glimpse into some of the simmering tensions in the Middle East.

The conflict was awfully familiar. The Israelis were arguing with the non-Israelis, and indeed with each other - over who was entitled to what territory. Some were polite, but others more hostile. It was an ugly scene. At one point, I thought people might well come to blows.

And still they could not sort it out. Who was supposed to be in what seat? The plane had not even taken off yet, but already Flight 2085, from Luton to Tel Aviv, had become a microcosm of the Middle East. Some argued from a point of legal entitlement. They held up their boarding passes, the seat number clearly visible.

"I have a right to be here," they protested. But others simply pointed out that they had got there first. I felt I had heard this before somewhere. They ignored the would-be occupants towering above them, now waving boarding cards in their faces, like title-deeds to a house. "Sit down," yelled the exasperated air stewardess, sounding like a teacher dealing with unruly children on a school bus trip. But no-one was listening to teacher that day.

Eventually, the captain's voice came over the intercom, more imploring than commanding. "If you do not take your seats soon, we will miss our slot, and take-off could be delayed by a very long time." In other words, if the fighting continued, everyone would lose. That kind of reasoning has never seemed to work too well in the Middle East, and it certainly did not make an impression on Flight 2085. The stand-off continued.

Tensions rose and so did voices in English, in Hebrew and in Russian. I only speak one of those languages but I am quite sure I was being treated to a crash course in their finest insults and for the first time I found myself awfully glad that metal implements are no longer permitted in carry-on luggage.

And then she appeared. The heroine of the day. I do not know her name, I guess I never will, but she seemed like Florence Nightingale and Mother Teresa all rolled in to one. A clever, sensitive stewardess came up with a compromise. "Sit down where you are for now," she said, "and we can sort out who goes where, once we are up in the air."

Brilliant. The passengers looked at her, they looked at each other, and they meekly obeyed. Those wanting a window seat accepted an aisle; couples hoping to travel together agreed to be rent asunder. It reminded me of the Oslo Agreement, back in the day when that seemed like a solution to the Middle East problem. Let us all calm down for a bit, live in our respective places for now, and sort out the final agreement later on in the day.

I thought of telling the stewardess she had missed her metier, that instead of serving gin and tonics to rude passengers, she should be working for the United Nations - she certainly could not have made a worse job than others who have tried. I drifted off into a reverie, imagining this diplomatic wonder-woman circling the globe, perhaps still wearing her Easyjet uniform - she would shuttle between North and South Korea, between the US and Iran - everywhere bringing her home-spun approach to international crises.

But I soon snapped out of my fantasy, because a while after take-off, a new problem arose. A group of Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jews had been given space at the back of the plane to hold a prayer meeting. They bowed, and recited, but in the process they attracted more worshippers and, who knows, perhaps new worshippers converted to the faith by this stirring display of mid-air religiosity.

Eventually there were so many offering their thanks to God that they were blocking the aisle, and the non-observant passengers found they could not reach the toilet. One unfortunate lady found herself stuck inside the lavatory, pushing on the door but meeting resistance from the mini-congregation now gathered outside. Soon the secular bladders were causing real problems to their owners, who began to complain that the religious people were getting things all their own way.

Now that is a complaint you will hear in Israel itself where there have been furious quarrels between zealous followers of God and those of a more sceptical inclination. But here we were nearly a thousand miles from the Holy Land and quite a few thousand feet up in the sky. I searched in vain for Easyjet's unappreciated ambassador-of-peace - the stewardess who had brought unexpected calm to a conflict-ridden flight.

But she had gone back to serving gin and tonics - and it looked like this time, she just did not want to get involved.

ShooterSF

DB21 wrote: »

The absolute worst are the "science" articles. Should I be fortunate enough to ever be published, I'll go out of my way and look at every paper that quotes my work and go after the ones that misrepresent whatever findings I've made.

Nodin

Horrendous act of cultural vandalism

Islamist insurgents retreating from the ancient Saharan city of Timbuktu have set fire to a library containing thousands of priceless ancient manuscripts, some dating back to the 13th century, in what the town's mayor described as a "devastating blow" to world heritage.

Traoré told the Guardian that some rebels had been sleeping in the new institute where some of the manuscripts were kept. He said that they had also destroyed the shrines of more than 300 Sufi saints dotted around the city. "They were the masters of the place," he said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/28/mali-timbuktu-library-ancient-manuscripts

FouxDaFaFa

Reminds me of the nationwide destruction of monuments depicting anything non-islam in Afghanistan. Giant Buddhas dating from about 200AD turned into a pile of dust. Makes me sick.

Banbh

RTE is reporting a shocking case of vandalism by retreating Islamists where a library containing ancient texts was destroyed.

However, on the radio news they had on some guy (didn't catch his name or expertise) who is bemoaning the loss of these texts for the wisdom they contain on women's rights, children's rights and the environment.

The books or texts are/were probably irreplaceable as artefacts but not for the 'wisdom' they might contain.

Dades

Video here:

http://news.linktv.org/videos/timbuktu-islamists-burn-one-of-the-most-treasured-libraries-in-the-world

SebBerkovich

Banbh wrote: »

RTE is reporting a shocking case of vandalism by retreating Islamists where a library containing ancient texts was destroyed.

However, on the radio news they had on some guy (didn't catch his name or expertise) who is bemoaning the loss of these texts for the wisdom they contain on women's rights, children's rights and the environment.

The books or texts are/were probably irreplaceable as artefacts but not for the 'wisdom' they might contain.

Who knows they might have held the secrete to keeping women in their place. But until we find out we're just going to have to take The Pope's word for it.

For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of World War II
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html
A long story - could also be labelled the hazards of totalitarianism.

A family belonging to a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect, worshiping in a style unchanged since the 17th century, fled the purges of the 1930s and lived in the wilderness for 40 years before some Soviet geologists spotted them from a helicopter.

pauldla

Kerry school denies anti-Semitism

The principal of one of Kerry's biggest secondary schools, Coláiste na Sceilge in Cahersiveen, has rejected claims by an Israeli journalist of anti-Semitism and pro-Palestinian bias in the school.
Principal John O'Connor said students and teachers always acted on "humanitarian basis " and, far from indoctrination, the school instilled critical thinking.
In a column published in English language daily the Jerusalem Post on January 25th, journalist Sarah Honig tells of encountering anti-Semitic remarks and overwhelming bias towards Palestine during a school-backed fundraising event to help Palestinians buy olive trees, a Trócaire project, on the streets of Cahersiveen.
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http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2013/0130/breaking43.html