Afghanistan passes law legalizing rape

The name “Hamid” means “praised”, but in this case the President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, should be condemned instead. Via Think Progress comes horrible news that he has traded women’s rights in order to advance his political career (emphasis added):

Afghanistan’s President, Hamid Karzai, has signed a law which “legalises” rape, women’s groups and the United Nations warn. Critics claim the president helped rush the bill through parliament in a bid to appease Islamic fundamentalists ahead of elections in August.

[...]

The most controversial parts of the law deal explicitly with sexual relations. Article 132 requires women to obey their husband’s sexual demands and stipulates that a man can expect to have sex with his wife at least “once every four nights” when travelling, unless they are ill. The law also gives men preferential inheritance rights, easier access to divorce, and priority in court.

A report by the United Nations Development Fund for Women, Unifem, warned: “Article 132 legalises the rape of a wife by her husband”.

In a massive blow for women’s rights, the new Shia Family Law negates the need for sexual consent between married couples, tacitly approves child marriage and restricts a woman’s right to leave the home, according to UN papers seen by The Independent.

“It is one of the worst bills passed by the parliament this century,” fumed Shinkai Karokhail, a woman MP who campaigned against the legislation. “It is totally against women’s rights. This law makes women more vulnerable.”

Why not just resign and run the IRS instead?

Barack Obama has an uncanny ability to find people with tax problems (hat tip).

Your Uncle Joe

Imagine your Uncle Joe robbed a store, and as punishment, you, your siblings, and your children are thrown in jail. Sound unjust? Well, that’s exactly what Jill Stanek is agreeing with as she quotes anti-choice asshole Gingi Edmond, discussing the recent plane crash in Montana:

But what the news sources fail to mention is… the [cemetery at the crash site] contains. the Tomb of the Unborn… erected as a dedication to all babies who have died because of abortion.

What else is the mainstream news not telling you? The family who died in the crash near the location of the abortion victim’s memorial, is the family of Irving ‘Bud’ Feldkamp, owner of the largest for-profit abortion chain in the nation…

…

In my time working for Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, I helped organize and conduct a weekly campaign where youth activists stood outside of Feldkamp’s mini-mansion in Redlands holding fetal development signs and raising community awareness regarding Feldkamp’s dealings in child murder for profit. Every Thursday afternoon we called upon Bud and his wife Pam to repent, seek God’s blessing and separate themselves from the practice of child killing.

We warned him, for his children’s sake, to wash his hands of the innocent blood he assisted in spilling because, as Scripture warns, if “you did not hate bloodshed, bloodshed will pursue you.” (Ezekiel 35:6)

A news source states that Bud Feldkamp visited the site of the crash with his wife and their 2 surviving children on Monday. As they stood near the twisted and charred debris talking with investigators, light snow fell on the tarps that covered the remains of their children.

I don’t want to turn this tragic event into some creepy spiritual “I told you so” moment, but I think of the time spent outside of Feldkamp’s – Pam Feldkamp laughing at the fetal development signs, Bud Feldkamp trying not to make eye contact as he got into his car with a small child in tow – and I think of the haunting words, “Think of your children.” I wonder if those words were haunting Feldkamp as well as he stood in the snow among the remains of loved ones, just feet from the Tomb of the Unborn?

Anyone who needs to declare that they are not making a “Told you so” statement is clearly making one; if they obviously weren’t, why would they need to say so? And isn’t this judging, which Jesus says not to do?

The comments at Stanek’s blog go on and on; all a bunch of forced-birthers gloating and rubbing their hands together with glee at the deaths of innocent people. It just goes to show that “pro-lifers” actually aren’t because don’t give a shit about people once they’re born.

And finally, if God really did this, it shows that God has a bad aim, as Mr. Feldkamp still lives, my condolences to him. Wouldn’t it have been less bloody simply to take Mr. Feldkamp? Finally, last year God killed 200 million embryos. Hence, God is clearly the ultimate abortionist. Therefore, if God wanted to kill an abortion provider he picked the wrong target. The most effective course of action would have been for him to kill himself.

Morning after pill coming for 17-year-olds

This is great news: In a decision in Tommino et. al v. Torti, Justice Edward Korman of the EDNY has ordered the Food and Drug Administration to allow the emergency contraceptive pill to be available without a prescription for women aged 17 and older. Emergency contraception was previously available OTC for adult women.

Among the findings was that there was undue political interference, “repeated and unreasonable delays”, and a lack of good faith in its decision making.

One of the first things to come out of litigation regarding the OTC status (for all women) of emergency contraception was news of a ridiculous fear of teenagers forming “sex-based cults“. This all goes to show how much the Bush Administration valued loyalty and ideology over ability and merit.

The Eyes of Texas are blindfolded

There is yet another study out showing that abstinence ignorance-only sex education does not work (hat tip). The money quote: “[Young people in Texas are] well above national averages on virtually every published statistic involving sexual risk-taking behavior[.]“

So much for atheists having no morals

From Unreasonable Faith: Pastor Gets Caught Lying for Jesus.

Proposed Texas bill to grant degrees in blasphemy

Via Pam’s House Blend comes the latest stupid bill in Texas: Bill Would Allow Texas School to Grant Master’s Degree in Science for Creationism Blasphemy. The bill, HB 2800, is proposed by Representative Leo Berman (R-Tyler) and would allow schools that meet certain criteria to grant degrees without authorization from the state’s Higher Education Coordination Board. Berman proposed the bill after he learnt that the Institution of Creation Research was denied authorization to grant Master of Science degrees by the HECB.

Unsurprisingly, Berman is a creationist. ”‘I don’t believe I came from a salamander that crawled out of a swamp millions of years ago,’ Berman told FOXNews.com. ‘I do believe in creationism. I do believe there are gaps in evolution.’”

I’ve already commented about this at PHB, but I’ll reiterate what I said here. The evidence for evolution is overwhelming. Indeed, “…the theory pf evolution by natural selection is so broadly supported by different lines of inquiry that biologists accept it with as much certainty as they do the theory of gravity. The theory of evolution is particularly important to biologists because it provides the conceptual framework that unifies biology as a science.” [Raven, Peter; Johnson, George. Understanding Biology, 3rd edition. Wm. C. Brown Publishers. 1995. p10] Berman’s quote also shows that he probably has no idea about what evolution actually is. Humans did not evolve from swamp-dwelling salamanders any more then they evolved from monkeys or paramecia. Instead, humans, salamanders, monkeys, and paramecia share a common ancestor.

Since the evidence for evolution is overwhelming, creationism is a indirect way of claiming that God is deceptive. As I’ve mentioned before, isn’t this akin to saying that God is a liar? And isn’t this blasphemous? It’s not me who’s asserting this; it’s Theodosius Dobzhansky, evolutionary biologist and member of the Russian Orthodox Church.