And the killing of innocents continues

Shocking news has emerged about the US bombing a hospital in Afghanistan even though the hospital in Kunduz run by Doctors Without Borders had previously notified the US of its GPS coordinates.

A US airstrike that killed up to 20 aid workers and patients in a Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Afghanistan constitutes a “grave violation of international law”, the charity’s president has said.

The bombardment, which occurred early on Saturday morning, went on for more than 30 minutes despite the charity raising the alarm with US and Afghan officials, and destroyed much of the compound in Kunduz.

The hospital had treated hundreds of people injured after the northern city fell to a dramatic Taliban attack last week, and when government troops launched an assault to reclaim it. Beds and corridors were still crammed with patients and their relatives when it was hit in the early hours of Saturday morning.

On Saturday evening, the dead included at least 12 members of staff and seven patients – three of whom where children. An MSF source told the Guardian the death toll could rise further.

[Read more…]

Upping the ante on political hate

With Donald Trump cornering the market on Mexican-hate, it looks like Ben Carson has decided that Muslim-hate will be his own vote-getting message with the frothing-at-the-mouth crowd. But this time, when he was called to account by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, instead of whining about political correctness that has become his trademark, he went even further and urged that the IRS should investigate the CAIR, showing that, like most hatemongers, he can dish it out but can’t take it.
[Read more…]

The plot thickens on the pope’s meeting with Kim Davis

Yesterday, Charles P. Pierce wrote an article suggesting that pope Francis was likely tricked into meeting with Kim Davis by those in the hierarchy of the Catholic church who are more loyal to ex-pope Ratzinger and are unhappy with the direction that Francis is taking the church. These people may have felt that having Francis appear to be endorsing such an anti-gay bigot like Davis would leave a sour taste in the mouths of people who had been swooning over his visit to the US. Here’s how Pierce thinks the plan was implemented by Archbishop Carlo Vigano, the papal nuncio to the United States,
[Read more…]

Killed for eating beef

The more politicians try to appease religious groups, the worse things get as the groups demand more and more. This seems to be a global problem affecting pretty much all religions. In the US we see Christian groups seek one exemption after another from following the rules that everyone else must follow by saying that not being allowed to do so means that their religion is being persecuted. Paradoxically, these claims of persecution become worse when these religions are in the majority because they can get politicians to pander to them, as we see with Christian extremists in the US, Buddhist extremists in Sri Lanka and Myanmar, Hindu extremists in India, and Muslim extremists in many Muslim-majority countries.
[Read more…]

Why do we continue to go through this over and over again?

Richard Glossip was due to die yesterday in Oklahoma for his conviction for being the brains behind a murder in 1997. Glossip has had last-minute reprieves before, raising the hopes of him, his family and friends, lawyers, and death penalty opponents, only to see them dashed. All of them had seemed resigned to the fact that he had run out of options and the fight was over. Then just an hour before he was to be killed, governor Mary Fallin issued a 37-day reprieve in order to study whether the method of execution was appropriate. Liliana Segura and Jordan Smith explain background to the latest events.
[Read more…]

Government once again avoids a shut down at the last minute

Congress has agreed to a short-term budget continuing resolution that will keep the government functioning until December 11, 2015. As expected, outgoing speaker John Boehner, as part of the resignation deal he had made with the Freedom Caucus, brought the bill to the floor for a vote and it passed 277-151. Meanwhile the Senate had passed it earlier 78-20.
[Read more…]

The end of the road for the Ten Commandments monument in Oklahoma?

The long-running saga of the Ten Commandments monument that stood on the grounds of the Oklahoma state capital may finally be coming to an end. After years of lawsuits that the state lost, threats by Satanists and Flying Spaghetti Monster devotees to put up their own monuments if it did not come down, digging in the heels by the governor, and threats of impeaching the state supreme court for ruling that the presence of the monument violated the state constitution, it looks like the end is near>.
[Read more…]