Month: May 2015

More than 100,000 paperback editions of Gideon Bibles have arrived in Nepal to provide relief for the millions of Nepalese desperate for help following the devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake that has struck the country. But the jet loaded with skids of boxed Bibles is being called misguided and “dumber-than-dumb-ass” by rescue groups and world governments alike. “Well, isn’t that just a plane-load full of stupid?” said a shocked and annoyed Nepal Prime Minister Sushil Koirala. “It is not a surprise to see the evangelical vultures are playing with the life of the people in distress. This is what they do everywhere when people are suffering.”

“We cannot eat Bibles. We cannot use them as shovels.” “Nepal desperately needs food and medicine and equipment and workers not best-seller books.” “If you are praying for Nepal, we thank you,” said Koirala. “But I humbly ask that you also get up and…

“The USCIRF is little more than a US busybody created to appease the US evangelical fundamentalist lobby. The US government uses USCIRF when its recommendations are in tune with its national interests and foreign policy. Otherwise, it is ignored. Likewise, we should ignore it. A joke deserves a laugh and embarrassed dismissal, not serious rebuttal or the expending of angry energy.” – R. Jagannathan 

The United States Commission of International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is a bit of a joke. It is a busybody created by US law to appease evangelical bigots at home. Its outpourings are used by the US state department — selectively — to rap countries that are difficult to handle diplomatically. It thus pontificates annually on the state of religious freedom everywhere. Everywhere, but the US and other developed countries of the largely Christian west.

It is only we in India who work up a lather over it…

The head of Uganda’s national police force said they will investigate money services businesses (MSBs) after Kenya suspended 13 MSBs alleged to finance the terrorist group al-Shabaab in Somalia. Several of those same companies operating in Somalia and Kenya also do business in Uganda.  Dahabshiil is probably the most prominent of the money transfer companies identified.

From the Kampala Observer via All Africa (h/t Chris Pariso):

Police chief Kale Kayihura has said they are to investigate transactions of money transfer companies here, after evidence in Kenya suggested that some were being used to channel money for financing terrorism.

Speaking in Kampala last week, Kayihura said some of the transfer companies under investigation in Kenya are affiliated to some institutions in Uganda. According to an April 14 gazette notice issued under Kenya’s Prevention of Terrorism Act and signed by police chief Joseph Boinnet, money transfer companies topped the list of 86…

“Now, the newly-created Islamic State has been systematically destroying several historical artefacts, shrines and even entire ancient cities, and has been clearly advertising its Islamic motivation time and again. We would like the eminent historians and other ‘progressive thinkers’ who are able to divine the intentions of long-dead tyrants to suggest economic and political solutions to ensure that the Islamic state spares at least a fraction of the historical artifacts that they are targeting.” – Bharavi

For centuries, the Abrahamic predilection for destroying all places and objects of worship save their own, generally inflicting either their religion on the Pagans and visiting gratuitous cruelty on the more recalcitrant ones was honestly ascribed by Abrahamic practitioners to the promptings of immutable doctrine, duly exemplified by the model conduct of a host of self-professed messengers of the Abrahamic deity.

Ironically, this was also one of the few points of tragically short-lived…