Quote of the Week - Richard Dawkins

With respect to those meanings of 'human' that are relevant to the morality of abortion, any fetus is less human than an adult pig.--Richard Dawkins' Tweet

Rowhani wins in Iran

TEHRAN, June 15: Moderate cleric Hassan Rowhani was declared Iran’s new president on Saturday in a surprise and outright election victory that ended eight years of conservative grip on the top office.

“This victory is a victory for wisdom, moderation and maturity… over extremism,” local media reported Mr Rowhani as saying in the first statement after his win.

A former top nuclear negotiator who championed more constructive engagement with world powers, Mr Rowhani, age 64, won outright with 18.6 million votes, or 50.68 per cent of those cast.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s website congratulated Mr Rowhani on his victory and urged the people to work with him.

“Congratulations to the people and to president-elect Hojatoleslam Hassan Rowhani,” Mr Khamenei’s website leader.ir reported.

“I urge everyone to help the president-elect and his colleagues in the government, as he is the president of the whole nation.”

Crowds marched through Vali-Asr Square in central Tehran carrying pictures of the winner and chanting pro-Rowhani slogans.

In northwest Tehran, people in Kaj Square cheered as passing cars sounded their horns in approval.

Source: Pakistan Dawn

Tony Blair on the Problem Inside Islam

Tony Blair


There is only one view of the murder of Lee Rigby: horrific.

But there are two views of its significance. One is that it is the act of crazy people, motivated in this case by a perverted idea about Islam, but of no broader significance. Crazy people do crazy things. So don’t overreact.

The other view is that this act was indeed horrible; and that the ideology which inspired it, is profound and dangerous.

I am of this latter view.

So of course we shouldn’t overreact. We didn’t after 7 July 2005. But we did act. And we were right to. The actions by our security services will undoubtedly have prevented other serious attacks. The ‘Prevent’ programme in local communities was sensible.

The new measures of the Government seem reasonable and proportionate.

However we are deluding ourselves if we believe that we can protect this country simply by what we do here. The ideology is out there. It isn’t diminishing.

Read it all here.

NSA Snooping Strains US-Pakistan Relations

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has sought explanation from the United States over reports that its citizens have been a major target of intelligence surveillance and asked the latter to respect the privacy of its citizens.
The apprehensions were conveyed to US Chargé d’Affaires Richard Hoagland by senior Foreign Office officials at a recent meeting.

“We have taken up the matter with the US to ascertain veracity of the news and obtain facts of the matter. We are awaiting their response,” Foreign Office spokesman Aizaz Chaudhry said at the weekly briefing on Thursday.

A Guardian report earlier this week claimed that information obtained from the US National Security Agency’s data-mapping tool ‘Boundless Informant’ had shown that Pakistan was second among the countries most subjected to US intelligence surveillance with almost 13.5 billion reports in just one month — March.

`Boundless Informant’ catalogues the volume of intelligence being collected from different countries. Most of the intelligence has been gathered from computer and telephone networks. The tool, however, did not detail what intelligence had been collected by the NSA.

The country subject to more intense watch was Iran where 14 billion reports were obtained during the same period.

A senior official told Dawn that the Foreign Office, though unsure about the authenticity of the leak, was concerned about the intelligence, if any, being used against the Pakistanis living in the US and about violation of their privacy. The official said Pakistan considered the intelligence scam to be an internal matter of the United States.

Washington is facing growing international pressure to explain the previously undisclosed surveillance programme identified in the documents leaked by the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden as ‘Prism’.

The disclosure is also likely to complicate relations with the US as the new government tries to build a working relationship with Washington.

Pakistani intelligence agencies, a source said, were particularly upset over the revelation about the intensity of the surveillance.

When US Secretary of State John Kerry visits Pakistan this month, he will be confronted with tough questions over drone war and the paranoid snooping programme.

Mr Kerry is due in Islamabad either on June 25 or 26.

The new government has taken a hard line on the drone attacks which have always been resented by Pakistan.

“There is an across-the-board political consensus with regard to Pakistan’s position on the issue of drone strikes. ...this matter is receiving priority attention of the government,” the FO spokesman said.

Source: Pakistan Dawn

Pope on Vatican "Gay Lobby"

Pope Francis has acknowledged the existence of a “gay lobby” in the Vatican and says he is consulting advisers on what to do about it.

Speaking informally to a confederation of religious groups from Latin America and the Caribbean, he said: “In the Curia, there are also holy people, really, there are holy people.” 

But, he added: “There also is a stream of corruption, there is that as well, it is true... The 'gay lobby' is mentioned, and it is true, it is there... We need to see what we can do.”

Read it all here.

Maine Rejects Physician Assisted Suicide

The Maine House of Representatives has decisively rejected a bill to legalize physician assisted suicide , just days after Vermont legalized it. The Patient Directed Care at End of Life bill was defeated 95-43. The legislation would have lifted criminal sanctions on doctors.

The bill was sponsored by the independent Rep. Joseph Brooks. Brooks gave an emotional address to the house about the slow death of his own father. Rep. Deborah Sanderson who used her mother’s death to argue the opposite case: “I sat with my mom the last five days of her life. I slept in a wheelchair by her bed,” she explained. “The night before my mother passed, my mother said, ‘It’s not like what I thought it would be.’ She said, ‘It’s peaceful.’”

The Maine Medical Association opposed the bill, as did the Maine Osteopathic Association, which called it "very dangerous public policy." Both groups strongly support better palliative care. Assisted suicide was defeated in a 1990 referendum.

Source: BioEdge

Quote of the Week - John Henry Newman

Newman                              Darwin

In 1868 John Henry Newman wrote to a fellow priest regarding evolution. Newman was open to Darwin’s theories, and was not intimidated by modern science. This is what he said:

“As to the Divine Design, is it not an instance of incomprehensibly and infinitely marvelous Wisdom and Design to have given certain laws to matter millions of ages ago, which have surely and precisely worked out, in the long course of those ages, those effects which He from the first proposed. Mr. Darwin's theory need not then be atheistical, be it true or not; it may simply be suggesting a larger idea of Divine Prescience and Skill. Perhaps your friend has got a surer clue to guide him than I have, who have never studied the question, and I do not [see] that 'the accidental evolution of organic beings' is inconsistent with divine design – It is accidental to us, not to God.”


(John Henry Newman, Letter to J. Walker of Scarborough, May 22, 1868, The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973)

H/T to Bishop David Chislett