the Revision Division

ITALY: “An Italian father who forced [how?] his teenage daughters to ski competitively and eat a macrobiotic diet because he was concerned they were too fat has been found guilty of abuse and sentenced to nine months in prison.” This sounds really weird, but then you read this:

The case started in 2011 when the two teenage girls – one is now an adult – complained to their mother that “Daddy treats us badly” and said they no longer wanted to visit their father. The parents are separated.

This is about a wife using the state to punish her husband for doing stuff she doesn’t like.

The 53-year-old father, who has not been named in press reports but has been described as a wealthy individual, has said he became worried about his daughters’ health when he saw pictures of them on Facebook. [Not in person? How often did he see them?] He said he encouraged them to ski and to eat a macrobiotic diet, avoiding processed and otherwise refined foods, out of a normal level of parental concern.

But the mother of the teenagers and the prosecutor in the case painted a different picture, of constant pressure and taunting by the father of his daughters.

NARRATIO SUPER FACTIS: The Left is still looking for a modern ‘rape culture’ poster child. Surely it cannot be all that difficult to find a female on a college campus who has been raped by a white heterosexual man. Right?

Earlier: Gee, I wonder why this alleged college gang rape isn’t getting much attention.

CULTURAL ENRICHMENT: Almost 500 cases of female genital mutilation identified in just one month in English hospitals. “Despite the apparently high number of FGM cases, no one has yet been convicted for the practice, which has been illegal in the UK since 1985.”

ROBERT STACY MCCAIN: “Feminism is a movement of ‘broken people’ who blame ‘society’ for their misfortunes and thus feel compelled to avenge themselves by destroying civilization as we know it.”

Great opener: “Emily McCombs is a recovering addict with tattoos and a pierced nose, not to mention a history of bulimia and sexual perversion, so it only makes sense that she is executive editor of the feminist blog XOJane.com.”

DOG BITES MAN: TSA Whistleblower Confirms Illegal Aliens May Board Planes With CA Licenses.

A whistleblower from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has turned over documents to Gotnews.com that contradict media reports that illegal immigrants may not travel within the U.S. with a California driver’s license.

A memo from Eric Beane, director of operations performance, security operations dated January 6, 2015 says that TSA accepts the illegal immigrant driver’s licenses for travel within the U.S.

THE NEW TEACHING: Obama Says Homosexuality Is A ‘Lifestyle Choice’.

President Barack Obama’s gay allies are ignoring his endorsement of the long-standing claim that sexual orientation is a matter of choice.

“I think people know that treating folks unfairly, even if you disagree with their lifestyle choice… Let them live their lives and under the law they should be treated equally,” he said . . .

Obama’s statement violates progressives’ demand that Americans believe there’s no choice in sexual orientation.

But Obama’s statement reflects mainstream views.

A May 2014 poll by Gallup showed that only 42 percent of Americans believe all gay people are “born that way,” regardless of choice. Thirty-seven percent of Americans believe that homosexuality is linked to upbringing and environment.

That’s a shift from 2013, when 47 percent said gays are born that way.

The author assumes that the “born this way” claim is a matter of fixed dogma for the left. But it isn’t. Indeed, it might be that the president is articulating a turn that is occurring right now with respect to what is acceptable to say. The Gallup shift mentioned in the article reflects this turn.

See this earlier post: What If Gay-Rights Advocates’ ‘Born This Way’ Argument Is Wrong?

See also: ‘Gayness’ more socio-cultural than biological, LGBT scholars say.

The idea of “born this way” has become less politically useful as the focus shifts from homosexuals to “trans persons.” It’s one thing to say that someone is “naturally” attracted to people of a particular sex, and it’s quite another to say that he’s naturally a deer.

THE NEW TOLERANCE: “California judges will no longer be allowed to participate in nonprofit youth groups, such as the Boy Scouts of America, that discriminate against LGBT people.”

JOHN C. WRIGHT on word fetishes.

A word-fetish is when you have a bit of language which you hope will have a magical effect on the world, turning gold into lead.

The simplest example is the phrase ‘wage slavery’ which, like the phrase ‘bright darkness’ or ‘four-sided triangle’ or ‘homosexual marriage’ is a nonsense phrase, signifying nothing and meant to signify nothing.

What word fetishes do is carry a connotation without carrying a denotation. In the above example, a slave is defined as one who is coerced into doing labor without a wage. The payment of a wage is the defining thing that makes a laborer not a slave; it is the sign that the exchange was voluntary. Hence the term ‘wage slavery’ has a connotation of a horrible and involuntary servitude, akin to bondage, and the connotation is affixed to working for a wage, a voluntary exchange between equals, which is the opposite.

Word fetishes are used instead of reasoning. When a man reasons, he defines his terms. When a Leftist unreasons — or whatever the mental activity is called whereby mental activity is deliberately made unable to act — what he does is undefine his terms. He makes clear terms muddy.

WHY NOT JUST LET HER LEAVE? 4-Year Prison Term For Colorado Woman Over Plot To Join ISIS. Revoke her citizenship and send her off. She gets what she wants and the nation has one less enemy within its borders. Win-win.

DOG BITES MAN: White professor teaches ‘problem of whiteness’ course at Arizona State.

DESPICABLE: Black Man Who Tortured, Executed Two White Teens Makes ‘Black Lives Matter’ Speech at Sentencing.

CULTURAL ENRICHMENT: “France’s prison population is estimated to be 70 per cent Muslim.” “Of the 67,500 people currently behind bars in France, it is estimated that 70 per cent are Muslim – when they comprise only eight per cent of the French public. It is illegal under France’s strict laicity laws to count the number of Muslim prisoners, but experts agree that the figure is an accurate average – with some prisons, like those near Paris and Marseille, seeing an even higher percentage.”

THE REDUCTIO STRIKES BACK: Cake Shop Faces Legal Action For Refusing to Make Anti LGBT Cake. “The customer wanted us to draw two males holding hands … with a big ‘X’ on them. I told him that we do not like to discriminate in this bakery, we accept all humans and that the message and drawing is extremely rude.”

Earlier: Christian Man Asks Thirteen Gay Bakeries To Bake Him Pro-Traditional Marriage Cake, And Is Denied Service By All Of Them.

YOU DON’T SAY: Abortion bill dropped amid concerns of female GOP lawmakers.

Female congressional Republicans also overwhelmingly supported the Violence Against Women Act: “One of the 19 House Republican women, Kristi Noem, voted against both [Republican and Democrat versions].” In the Senate, all Republican women voted for the bill that then went to the House: Murkowski (AK), Collins (ME), Fischer (NE), and Ayotte (NH). (For a reminder of [male] Republican objections to the bill, see the summary here.)

Are female Republican politicians given to identity politics? Maybe, maybe not. I don’t see Republicans asking themselves this, but it seems rather important.

PRIORITIES: France hands out first fines for anti-gay tweets. Weren’t they just marching for free speech or something?

The case against the three had been brought by French charity Comité Idaho, which organizes the International Day Against Homophobia in France.

It had filed a complaint against the users for inciting hatred and violence on the basis of sexual orientation.

The punishments handed down however were fairly light – one was fined €300 while the other two were forced to pay €500 – given the maximum punishment is up to a year in prison and a €45,000 fine.

Although all three were forced to pay the same amount to Comité Idaho, which welcomed the ruling this week.

“The case against the three had been brought by French charity Comité Idaho . . . All three were forced to pay . . . Comité Idaho.” Oh, so it’s not only about thought policing; it’s also about cronyism.

ACE: It’s Official: The Obama Economy Has Helped Exactly One (1) Person In America, And Shockingly Enough, It’s a Democrat Campaign Staffer.

FIGURES: GOP Speech Pushes Immigration Reform [read: amnesty]—in Spanish Version Only.

Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida delivered the Republicans’ Spanish-language response to President Obama’s State of the Union address. His remarks initially were billed as a translation of Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst’s official GOP response. . . .

While Ernst’s speech included comments about abortion politics, Curbelo instead touted the need for immigration reform. “We should work through the appropriate channels to create permanent solutions to our immigration system, modernize legal immigration, and strengthen our economy,” he said, according to a translation by the Democratic opposition research firm American Bridge. From there, Curbelo went directly back into language also found in Ernst’s speech, saying: “In the past, the President has expressed support for ideas like these; now we ask him to collaborate with us to get it done.”

CONFESSIONS Of A Serial Rapist.

It’s easier to rape when you are in a long term relationship. Consent gets pretty murky. My partners were not always into sex when I wanted it. I didn’t care. And because they valued me, and their relationship with me, they accepted it. Their own minds were murky. That’s the perfect storm.

Just what you want.

I didn’t care if they were tired. I didn’t care if they were feeling run down. I didn’t care if they just wanted to go to sleep. . . .

Verbal consent? What’s that? I don’t ask. I impose. Like physically impose. Strip off my clothes and simply declare what is going to happen. What’s going to happen? Sex. Because I want it. . . . I’m not initiating any stupid conversations about how and why your feelings are important. . . .

I take what I want. I coerce. I cajole. To a point. I’ll try and persuade you this is what you want, too, but ultimately, I don’t [care]. . . .

Oh please, with your whining. They love it. They come back for more. Which I’m happy to deliver.

I am a serial rapist and I have no regrets.

PS: I’m also a woman, and all my victims are male.

EVERYONE HATES LOSERS, even SJWs.

“I asked a roomful of women, queer people and minorities, ‘What do you want straight men to do? And what do you want them to be like?'” she recalls.

Lee wrote down all of the answers. It boiled down to this: They wanted the straight white male character to sit down and shut up.

“When you hear that around the table, you just feel yourself sinking slowly into the chair,” remembers James Stanley, who plays the character created from the list. The character, named Matt, is a sort of idealized straight white male. He works for a not-for-profit and is guided by a sense of trying not to — in his words — “make things worse.” Lee and Stanley workshopped the character in front of the students. Who hated him.

“Hated him,” Lee said, clearly still surprised. “And I realized that the reason why they hated him was — despite all their commitment to social justice — what they believed in most was not being a loser. [Matt] is exhibiting behavior that gets attributed to people of color: not being assertive, not standing up for himself, always being in a service position.”

The actor played the straight white male the leftists said they preferred, and they ended up having utter contempt for him — just like they do for real-life straight white males who try to be as inoffensive as possible by being apologetic and weak.

The best bit is at the end:

Alright, gang. Comments got out of hand on this post, so we’re closing them. — CodeSwitch editors

It looks like I’m not the only one who noticed.

GOVERNMENT IS JUST A WORD FOR THE THINGS WE DO TOGETHER: This 88-year-old doctor treats the poor out of his Toyota Camry. Mississippi wants to punish him for it.

“I’ve always had a heart for the poor,” Landrum told The Washington Post this week, struggling to hold back tears. “I grew up poor, and when the doctor would come to us, and he was happy to see us, I pictured myself doing that some day. I try not to ever turn people away — money or no money – because that’s where the need is.”

But his work may soon come to an end.

Landrum said he’s being asked by the Mississippi State Board of Medical Licensure to surrender his medical license, which he’s carried in his pocket with pride since Dwight D. Eisenhower was president. The reason for the request, according to Landrum, is that the board balked several months ago upon learning that he was operating his practice out of a car.

DOG BITES MAN: Government health care website quietly sharing personal data. “The scope of what is disclosed or how it might be used was not immediately clear, but it can include age, income, ZIP code, whether a person smokes, and if a person is pregnant. It can include a computer’s Internet address, which can identify a person’s name or address when combined with other information collected by sophisticated online marketing or advertising firms.” It’s cronyism all the way down.

NOT LIKELY: Was 2014 Really The Warmest Year Ever?

Related: Is NOAA Wrong?

What is the reason for this huge difference in the surface and tropospheric records? I think it is a result of two things—the endless upwards adjustment of the surface data, along with the always-growing urban heat island effect.

But whatever the reason, it is clear that the satellite record tells a very different answer than the one given by the practitioners of the dark art of post-hoc historical temperature adjustment. Given my choice, I’d say that the satellite record is the better of the two … and while YMMV on that question, at a minimum we can say that the development of climate science is in such an early stage that we still don’t have general agreement on even the recent temperature history of the planet, much less the earlier temperature record. “Settled science” at its finest, I suppose.

Also: If The Present Refuses To Get Warmer, Then The Past Must Become Cooler.

RELIGION OF PIECES: Niger: 45 churches burned in protests that killed 10. Is it just me, or is the press playing it loose with the word “protest”? Imagine the headline “Tens of millions killed, wounded by massive protest across Europe after death of Archduke Ferdinand in earlier, smaller protest.”

THANKS, PAL: Pope Francis: Listen to women, men are too machista.

Pope Francis has called on men to listen to women as they have “much to tell us.” Women are able to ask questions that men can’t grasp, the pontiff told an audience in the Philippines, where his comments drew instant applause.

“Women have much to tell us in today’s society,” Francis told a mostly male audience at the Catholic University of Santo Tomas in Manila, on the last day of a weeklong visit to Philippines and Sri Lanka. . . .

“At times we men are too ‘machista’, the Argentinian pontiff said using word for the term for extreme male chauvinism in his native Spanish.

We “don’t allow room for women but women are capable of seeing things with a different angle from us, with a different eye.” . . .

“When the next pope comes to Manila, let’s please have more women among you.”

Has the pope ever told a gathering of mostly women that they need to listen to men more and stop being so bitchy? I wonder how that’d go.

UPDATE: A transcript of his remarks in the original Spanish, as well as a translation, are available here.

UK: Suspended and sent for ‘equality training’ – Christian magistrate who said: ‘Adopted child needs mum and dad – not gay parents’.

Richard Page told colleagues behind closed doors during an adoption case that he thought it would be better for a child to be brought up in a traditional family rather than by a gay couple.

He was shocked a week later when he found he had been reported to the judges’ watchdog for alleged prejudice, and was suspended from sitting on family court cases.

That crimethink is doubleplusungood. Off to Room 101!

Meanwhile, it’s acceptable to remove foster children from parents simply because those parents are members of UKIP: “The official in charge is still unrepentant. Joyce Thacker, the council’s director of children and young people’s services, has said that the children, who were from ‘EU migrant backgrounds’, had been removed to protect their ‘cultural and ethnic needs’ from UKIP’s ‘strong views’ and apparent ‘opposition to multiculturalism’.”

FOR DRAMA, POST THIS ON FACEBOOK: 10 Women Christian Men Should Not Marry.

4. The Feminist. There’s no room within Christendom for the “Christian feminist.” Though women and men have equal value in the eyes of God (Gal 3:28), they certainly have different God-given roles. Any woman who tries to usurp her husband’s authority or even claims to be a co-leader with her man is gravely dishonoring the God who created her to be subject and obedient to her husband (Eph 5:22, Col 3:18, 1 Pet 3:1). Eve was distinctly created “for” man, a point that the apostle Paul makes abundantly clear in 1 Corinthians 11 when he writes, “For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.” (1 Corinthians 11:8-9). Men, your wife is to be your “helper” (Gen 2:18)–not your leader and certainly not your equal in terms of authority. Look for a woman who agrees with you in this very vital God-ordained relational dynamic.

HERE WE GO: World War P Beckons. “These poor-me articles are just the first step to the normalization of pedophilia. A quick follow-up to World War G and World War T. These pro-pedophilia articles have become relatively common over the past year or so. Over the next decade, expect to see these articles slowly and subtly shift from ‘we have to help these people’ to ‘we should tolerate these people’ to ‘we should accept these people’ to ‘there’s nothing wrong with these people’ to ‘this is an alternative lifestyle’.”

Not that there’s anything wrong with that!

VOX DAY: “There is literally no male space that feminists aren’t demanding to see women invade while claiming that the invasion is a moral imperative that will somehow improve that space.”

Earlier: Whether it’s deciding to be a stay at home mother or a pastor, it’s all about what women want for themselves.

ILYA SOMIN: Over 80 percent of Americans support “mandatory labels on foods containing DNA”. Just dismantle the government school system right now. It’s certainly doing us no good.

If the government does impose mandatory labeling on foods containing DNA, perhaps the label might look something like this:

This product contains deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). The Surgeon General has determined that DNA is linked to a variety of diseases in both animals and humans. In some configurations, it is a risk factor for cancer and heart disease. Pregnant women are at very high risk of passing on DNA to their children.

Well played.

SPOKE TOO SOON: Judd Apatow: Bill Cosby belongs in jail: “He doesn’t have an alibi for any one of these people.”

But: “Bill Cosby’s lawyer says he has documentation that proves Cosby was in New York, not Los Angeles or the Playboy Mansion, on the date when his latest accuser says he assaulted her.”

Maybe he’s guilty of some charges. Maybe he’s not. Let the legal system work it out instead of going ballistic on Twitter.

IT’S A START: Boston Mayor Fires 25 Year Old Finnish “Gender & Migration Consultant” After She Takes Part In I-93 Protest.

What the hell is a “Gender & Migration Consultant” from Finland doing working for the city of Boston?

Don’t we have enough Barnard graduates with useless degrees born in America who can do this job?

Furthermore, what about being a Gender and Migration Consultant makes her an expert in communications or fit to work with children/families on behalf of the city of Boston?

UK: Mother and daughter weigh a total of 43 stone and get £34k a year handouts, but refuse to diet. “I’d rather my daughter live life on benefits being fat and happy than depressed and thin.”

Earlier: UK: A kebab-loving couple declared too fat to work are raking in £2k a month in welfare handouts from the British taxpayer.

Also: UK: Josie Cunningham launches website encouraging girls to get pregnant and live on benefits.

And: UK: Jobless mum advises her daughter, 19, to get pregnant – for an easy life on benefits.

DAVID POST: Stephen Soderbergh, copyright infringer?

Actor-director Stephen Soderbergh has been getting a great deal of attention recently for posting his newly-edited versions of classic films . . .

Soderbergh was the lead plaintiff in the 2006 case of Soderbergh et al v. Clean Flicks of Colorado et al., (433 F.Supp.2d 1236). Clean Flicks (and the other defendants) were in the business of preparing and distributing edited versions designed to be more “family friendly” (i.e. with the nasty stuff edited out) of previously-released motion pictures. . . .

The plaintiffs – Soderbergh included – were successful at shutting the operation down, on the grounds that the edited versions prepared by Clean Flicks violated their rights under sec 106(2) of the Copyright Act to create “derivative works” of the films . . .

Is he just a hypocrite, who thinks that he has some kind of “artistic license” to do what he denies to others, that his creativity is somehow more valuable than the creativity of others? That’s what it looks like to me, I must say.

A REDUCTIO COMES TO LIFE: Not White In The Head: The Tumblr Teens Convinced They Were Born The Wrong Species, Sex And Even Race. Skip the article and just look at this.

NOT THAT THERE’S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT: What It’s Like to Date Your Dad. “In the late ’80s, the founder of a support group for adopted children who had recently reconnected with their biological relatives coined the term ‘Genetic Sexual Attraction’ (GSA) to describe the intense romantic and sexual feelings that she observed occurring in many of these reunions. According to an article in The Guardian, experts estimate that these taboo feelings occur in about 50 percent of cases where estranged relatives are reunited as adults.”

From the interview:

I’m planning on a full-on wedding but it won’t be legally registered. And personally, I don’t believe you need a piece of paper to prove that you want to be with the person you love. When you get married, you are signing part of yourself over to somebody We’ll tell everybody that we got our marriage license but they don’t have to see it. One of our friends will act as the celebrant. . . .

I just don’t understand why I’m judged for being happy. We are two adults who brought each other out of dark places. People need to research incest and GSA because they don’t get it and I don’t think they understand how often it happens.

NOT A GOOD SIGN: Muslim Students Across France Yell “Allahu Akbar,” Dishonor Moment Of Silence For Charlie Hebdo Victims. “At another school in Seine-Saine-Denis, some 80 percent of students refused to honor the moment of silence, saying that the Charlie Hebdo staff ‘deserved what they got’ for insulting Islam’s Muhammad, reports Le Figaro. In another incident in Lille, a young boy threatened to shoot his teacher ‘with a Kalashnikov’ for asking him to remain silent during the minute of remembrance. Others spoke highly of jihadists who had joined ISIS and fought on behalf of Islam abroad.”

It’s a good thing that the majority of young Muslims in France don’t represent True Islam™, or the French might be in trouble.

INTERESTING: Sex ratio effects on reproductive strategies in humans. “Using data from eight Makushi communities of southern Guyana, characterized by varying ASRs [adult sex ratios] contingent on migration, we show that even within a single ethnic group, male mating effort varies in predictable ways with the ASR. At male-biased sex ratios, men’s and women’s investment in mating effort are indistinguishable; only when men are in the minority are they more inclined towards short-term, low investment relationships than women. Our results support the behavioural ecological tenet that reproductive strategies are predictable and contingent on varying situational factors.”

CULTURAL ENRICHMENT: The Troubling Math of Muslim Migration. “Dearborn, Mich., is home to just under 100,000 people, about 40 percent of whom are Muslim. In 2013, a leaked government document revealed that more people from Dearborn were on the federal terrorist watch list than from any other city except New York.”

Suggesting a correlation between the number of Muslims in the country and the incidence of radicalism is, of course, considered insensitive, if not downright “Islamophobic.”

But the only point here is a mathematical one: Whatever the percentage of Muslims who support or would ever consider supporting jihadism, the raw number obviously increases along with the total number of Muslims. One percent of 10 million is much larger than 1 percent of 1 million. The questions is, at what point does the radical population achieve a kind of critical mass? . . .

The most obvious prophylactic would be to simply reduce the numbers of immigrants permitted from Muslim-majority countries.

EDIT: Related: Dearborn No-Go Zone: Where Islam Rules and Christians Are Stoned.

USEFUL: Reviving Blue Collar Work: How to Start a Career in the Trades.

YOUNG TEXAN earns $140,000 a year, with a two-year degree and hard work. “He attended Texas State Technical College in Waco, and received a two-year degree in welding. In 2013, his first full year as a welder, his income was about $130,000, more than triple the average annual wages for welders in the U.S. In 2014, Mr. Friend’s income rose to about $140,000.”

TODD STARNES: “A Virginia school district has decided to scrap a policy that allowed it to interrogate homeschooled 14-year-olds about their religious beliefs.”

“The policy provided the school board the right to call the child before them (and I call it interrogation) to defend those beliefs so they could determine whether indeed the child and the parents still held bona fide religious beliefs to qualify for the exemption,” Prueitt said.

His immediate reaction was to reject the district’s mandate – even though his refusal could have had landed the family in court. He cited the Virginia religious exemption statute which gives families a right to an exemption from school attendance based on the religious training the parents are providing to the child – regardless of what the child believes. The local policy, he said, violates that right.

So like a good citizen, Pruiett contacted the school superintendent.

“When I spoke with the school superintendent about this issue he stated that part of the rationale in changing the policy was to allow the board to ascertain if a home schooled child really wants to be home schooled so that they, ‘can be given the opportunity to go to public school,’” he said.

CONTROL FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS, CONTROL EVERYTHING: Audio Tapes Reveal How Federal Regulators Shut Down Gun Store Owner’s Bank Accounts.

“The examiners from NCUA [National Credit Union Administration] — that’s who governs us — it’s a federal government agency. They came in and did an exam on everything,” the manager told Shuetz.

“There was about a dozen crawling of them crawling around the building. And they were just hammering us.”

“So they came in, looked at our books, looked at everything and said “here are some accounts that we feel that we’re going to regulate you on,’” the manager explained, adding “so they kind of put the screws to us as far as what we could and couldn’t do.”

“Our hands were tied by it,” he said.

“We never used to have to do that stuff,” the manager told Shuetz, explaining that after a recent merger, “our asset size grew to over $250 million, and we’re your that size it triggers NCUA examiners then coming in and looking at you closer.”

Numerous gun and ammunition dealers, payday lenders, and pawn shops have claimed they were unfairly targeted by the regulation by Operation Choke Point. Ostensibly designed to fight consumer fraud, Operation Choke Point essentially threatens onerous oversight on financial institutions which do business with companies in industries listed as “high-risk.”

Gun and ammunition dealers are on that list.

UK: Channel 4 Execs To Lose Bonuses If They Fail To Meet Diversity Quotas.

AN ATHEIST REMARKS ON CHRISTIAN “OUTREACH”: When Church Degrades to Marketing.

Instead of standing for standards and adhering to its constitution (the bible) there are way too many churches that instead change, adapt, and betray its original rules and laws simply to get more congregants. And this simple act tells me they care more about money, marketing, and creating jobs for ego maniacs who’d rather be pastors than work real jobs.

However, the real Christians are fleeing in droves. Done with acoustic guitar playing bands, support groups, vacations disguised as “missionary trips,” and the whole potpourri of thinly veiled business marketing, real adherents of Christ [are] looking for something that just doesn’t exist – a normal f*cking church.

THE ISLAMIZATION of Britain in 2014.

Islam and Islam-related issues were omnipresent in Britain during 2014, and can be categorized into four broad themes: 1) Islamic extremism and the security implications of British jihadists in Syria; 2) the continuing spread of Islamic Sharia law in Britain; 3) the sexual exploitation of British children by Muslim gangs; and 4) Muslim integration into British society.

What follows is a chronological review of some of the main stories involving the rise of Islam in Britain during 2014.

NEWSFLASH: VEGETABLES ARE AWARE. Man Awakens After 12 Years in a “Vegetative State,” Says “I Was Aware of Everything”.

His doctors told his parents, Rodney and Joan Pistorious, to bring him home and let him die. They told them he was as good as a vegetable. . . .

His father would get up at 5 o’clock in the morning, get him dressed, load him in the car, take him to the special care center where he’d leave him. Rodney said, “Eight hours later, I’d pick him up, bathe him, feed him, put him in bed, set my alarm for two hours so that I’d wake up to turn him so that he didn’t get bedsores.”

For twelve years, Martin’s family cared for him without any sign that he was improving. Joan started to despair and even told her son, “I hope you die.” . . .

Martin spent most of those days at a care center where his caregivers played Barney reruns over and over again. They did this because they believed he was a vegetable too. He said, “I cannot even express to you how much I hated Barney.”

COLORADO: State commissioner says refusing on religious grounds to bake cakes celebrating homosexual unions is like defending slavery and the Holocaust.

Phillips appealed the commission’s decision to uphold an administrative law judge’s ruling against him. He was ordered to retrain himself and his staff to comply with the wishes of same-sex duos and report on his progress to the state.

“In its public deliberations, its members virtually ignored Phillips’s constitution defenses. And at a later hearing on Phillips’s motion to stay its order, one committee member candidly explained why,” the brief explains.

The commission member was Diann Rice.

“I would also like to reiterate what we said in the hearing or the last meeting,” Rice said. “Freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the Holocaust, whether it be – I mean, we – we can list hundreds of situations where freedom of religion has been used to justify discrimination. And to me it is one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use to – to use their religion to hurt others.”

Defending slavery sure is wrong, isn’t it? It’s wrong to force someone to labor for someone for whom he does not wish to labor. And it’s wrong to defend this with fair-sounding ideals — like, I dunno, how about non-discrimination?

Earlier: Slavery + Reeducation Camps = Tolerance: Baker forced to make gay wedding cakes, undergo sensitivity training, after losing lawsuit.

WALTER OLSON: Is the D.C. Metro Fixable? If So, Why Doesn’t Our Political Class Fix It? “If the cream of the nation’s political class, living within a 50 mile radius in Virginia, Maryland, and D.C., cannot arrange to obtain competence from their elected local officials in delivering a public service that’s vital to their daily work lives, what does that tell us about their pretensions to improve through federal action the delivery of local government services – fire and police, water supply and schooling, road maintenance and, yes, transit itself – in the rest of the country?”

ON CHARLIE HEBDO: A letter to my British friends.

All sorts of criticism started pouring down the web against Charlie Hebdo, who was described as islamophobic, racist and even sexist. . . .

As a Frenchman and a radical left militant at home and here in UK, I was puzzled and even shocked by these comments and would like, therefore, to give you a clear exposition of what my left-wing French position is on these matters. . . .

The main target of Charlie Hebdo was the Front National and the Le Pen family. Next came crooks of all sorts, including bosses and politicians (incidentally, one of the victims of the shooting was an economist who ran a weekly column on the disasters caused by austerity policies in Greece). Finally, Charlie Hebdo was an opponent of all forms of organized religions, in the old-school anarchist sense: Ni Dieu, ni maître! They ridiculed the pope, orthodox Jews and Muslims in equal measure and with the same biting tone. They took ferocious stances against the bombings of Gaza. Even if their sense of humour was apparently inacceptable to English minds, please take my word for it: it fell well within the French tradition of satire – and after all was only intended for a French audience. It is only by reading or seeing it out of context that some cartoons appear as racist or islamophobic. Charlie Hebdo also continuously denounced the pledge of minorities and campaigned relentlessly for all illegal immigrants to be given permanent right of stay. I hope this helps you understand that if you belong to the radical left, you have lost precious friends and allies.

I don’t think he gets it — which is probably for the best, because that means he’s at least somewhat sane. It doesn’t matter if you’re a saint in every way except one, so long as that one way contradicts doctrine. And the doctrine in this case is Don’t Criticize Islam.

DID CATHOLIC EUROPE adopt restrictions on cousin marriage from the Romans? (I have taken liberties with capitalization in the quoted text. For the original formatting, click the link.)

There is a direct link between ancient Rome’s and medieval/modern northern Europe’s cousin marriage avoidance. That link is quite obviously the Catholic Church which adopted all sorts of Roman institutional structures and practices; but more specifically I’m referring to several of the Church Fathers, the earliest of whom lived in the Roman Empire itself and who, no doubt, were very aware of the Roman avoidance of cousin marriage and very likely, having been raised “in Rome,” had even internalized the idea as a natural and good one.

Here, in sequence, are the guys that I think passed the Romans’ notion of avoiding close marriage down to us (by introducing the idea into canon law).

Earlier: Attempting to Explain the Rise of Western Europe: hbd* chick’s Big Summary Post on the Hajnal Line.