Daily Blend: Sunday, June 27, 2010

Again, why Christian hooligans aren’t known for their originality

The annual Loto-Québec/La Ronde fireworks really are something worth all the hassle and packing for. I don’t even know if I go there for the pyrotechnics, or for the always assuredly great musical choices to which the celestial fires dance. Just sayin’.

• Secular billboard reading “One Nation Indivisible” was vandalized [pictured] within a week of being put up. Includes typically unimaginative Christian vandalism.

• So you’re a couple who just rented an apartment, only to find it suddenly re-advertised as for rent just weeks before you were to move in? Oh, that’s just ’cuz you’re gay and the landlord’s a God-fearing nut.
  (via Friendly Atheist)

• Atheist mayor bans Christian prayer from city council meetings. Yes, of course, that’s Mayor Colin Hall of Leicester, England. An atheist mayor prohibiting Christian prayer in government proceedings in the United States? The idea is laughable. (*sad laugh*) And of course, your stupid Christian persecution quote of the day, from Mike Judge of the Christian Institute: “[Mayor Colin Hall is] imposing his own views on the rest of the council.” Because, in the topsy-turvy world where Christians like Mike Judge live, prohibiting religionists from imposing their religious customs is, itself, an imposition upon religionists’ rights.
  (via Friendly Atheist)

• The case of Dr. Dix Poppas and the surgical alteration of little girls’ clitorises: First, the blogosphere was all over the “creepy doctor hacking off little girls’ clits then tests with vibrators for fun” angle. Then, Hannah Rosin at Slate defends Dr. Poppas’s practice, revealing that he was actually using surgery to fix malformed (ie. generally overlarge) clitorises as caused by congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) and that then testing the post-op genitals with a vibrator is the best way to reveal any nerve damage. Now, Dan Savage at Slog and Alice Dreger at Psychology Today attack the Rosin Slate article (with a rather childishly sensationalistic post title on Dan Savage’s part), saying that it’s not the doctor’s call whether or not to “fix” the deformed clits (amongst other issues, too numerous to list here). My take on it all: I know that if I’d been born with six fingers on one hand, I sure as hell wouldn’t be angry now to learn if a doctor had opted to remove the extra digit. Apply that analogy in any way and variation you want; the point is, if a doctor can fix an obvious and potentially embarrassing physical deformity, even – or especially – if it’s part of a child’s genitals, given the importance one tends to attach to that area, then I just can’t dredge up much disagreement about it. (I’ll probably get flamed eight ways to next Sunday for saying that, but there.)

• Shocker: Closure of Guantanamo Bay has been shelved. Not sure which to blame more, dogmatically ridiculous Republicans who did their best (up to and past insane fear-mongering) to oppose the move, or President Obama’s own knack of betraying his previous promises at the slightest political pressure.
  (via The Agitator)

• Awesome photos of lightening striking two Chicago buildings simultaneously.
  (via The Agitator)

• The Gulf/BP oil spill tracker. Includes interactive timeline slider showing the development of the disaster. Informative and scary.
  (via @ebertchicago)

• University reporters agree: Sarah Palin is just plain dumb. (And very, very inane.)
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Don’t worry, US newspapers: You’re not alone in sucking.
  (via @Martynnorris)

As always, if you have any story suggestions, feel free to send them in.