Oh how I wish this was a joke.

All of this is horrible on just about every level.

Now remember Cienna, that is another culture, so we can't judge it.

Never.

Ever Ever Ever.

And you monkeys celebrated the "Arab Spring." Hah. Brutal dictatorships are the only thing keeping these (other) savage monkeys in place.

The fact that Islamic law even discusses the conditions under which bestiality is acceptable is reason enough to dismiss the whole business as lunacy.

Interestingly, our relationship with Israel will become even more important as these stupid Arabs try to administer themselves. That's no good; Israel is an embarrassment among this nation's allies.

The Semites are a fucking mess. Here's to a new Persian Empire extending from the mountains of Afghanistan to the shores of the Nile. These savages can't take care of themselves. Obviously they require the wiser administration of almost any other people on earth.

@2 Yeah that's some Heavy Western Moral Judgement, right? How dare we.

Screw that.

I'm judging it, @2.

And it is PERVY!

The sad thing is that over at The Onion ( http://www.theonion.com ) they've just realized that they have to close down operations.

Reality has just eclipsed their ability to mock it.

Egypt is free! Hooray! A whole lot of people are going to wish things were different and I think they are starting to regret this. But it's their choice, not ours. They can vote the extremists out if they don't like it. That is, if they don't take away a woman's right to vote.

Looks like the Egyptians are going to need a second revolution, otherwise the Nile Delta is going to look like Afghanistan in 20 years. Fucking Islam is a gutter religion. Feel bad for the regular non fanatics, they're going to have rough time with this bunch.

Fuck like an Egyptian (I might take Zombie Susanna Hoffs for a spin if allowed...who knows? Plus, the Egyptians are real good at preserving the dead and giving them an uncanny lifelike appearance. I say go with what gets ya through the day...)

Too bad Obama didn't follow Bush's lead in Iraq and send in troops. By having our presence there for a few years, it helped mediate the new Government into a more moderate Americanized stance.

Obama's callowness at using force resulted in more deaths in a few months than the entire Iraq war, and now, this, an unmoderated government swept into a power vacuum because we did not take our full responsibility.

If the choice is between Egypt (et al) voting themselves into tyranny, and having a US-backed tyranny forced upon them, I'd still say the former is preferable.

But I do not envy them that choice.

Am I the only one who realized that the Daily Mail got taken for a ride -- as did the Stranger and apparently everyone else here? I'll simply paste Sarah Carr's response, as it's better than what I'd be able to write (and she' British, where the story first gained traction):

"This is what Sarah Carr wrote in response to stories about Egypt's Parliament considering a law to permit a man to have sex with his deceased wife:

While I appreciate that the Daily Mail sifts the Internet daily for news pieces that will confirm to its readers that Muslims are all book-burning, wife-incarcerating, turban-wearing lunatics, and while I appreciate that this item is particularly attractive because of its salaciousness, if Lee Moran had troubled himself to do a little bit of research beyond translating an op-ed and a TV talking head, he would have discovered that in fact, a draft law to allow men to bonk their deceased wives does not exist. This may seem remarkable, given that Egyptians (i.e. scary mooslems) revolted in 2011 for PRECISELY this right, but there we are.

If Mr Moran's googling had been more thorough he would have discovered that this rumour was started by a local wacko who, alas, has a public platform by virtue of the fact that he owns a satellite channel.

The Egyptian creeping sharia (ON OUR DOORSTEP! ONLY BEING KEPT AT BAY BY THE MED!)+corpse+sex combo is irresistible, clearly."

BTW, the responses to this so far, and the Stranger post, say a lot about the people who wrote them. Did you guys know that "gullible" isn't in the dictionary?

@12--do you have a link?

@14: Here's her FB page:
https://www.facebook.com/sarahmareacarr

You can follow her links to other stories that track the fabrication.

@15--thanks.

Interesting to see this story spread quickly throughout the mainstream and other media in the US and elsewhere. Does the Stranger want to be among the first to retract it?

Wow. Since when did more crazy, hate-filled, bloodthirsty right-wingers start reading The Stranger than other people? Or is it just a couple of angry, sad souls?

And now some in the MSM making fun of the others in the MSM who fell for it:

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Backchann…

@13 it's the Strangers job to vet what they write. Not ours. Though I'm not surprised. I should have been more skeptical. However don't mock other posters. Mock Cienna for being so gullible and not doing her fucking job.

@12,

I had a hard time believing that Muslim belief would green light necrophilia, but I was too lazy to do any research. Nice work.

So yes, this is gross. But can we look at the more important part? "The controversial new law... will also see the minimum age of marriage lowered to 14 and the ridding of women's rights of getting education and employment." This hurts women from life to death. I think that part might be a tad bit more important and newsworthy.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-…

Yup. That's what I get for not following up such a salacious story. I hang my head in shame. Fuck Islam, though. For realz.

@22

The average of conception in the world is 13 1/2 years old, and the average of motherhood is 14 1/2. Given that, I'd say Egypt is ahead of the curve.

Women are fertile at that age and it's when their ability to have children is at its most likely (and, perhaps, most survivable, if there isn't access to modern healthcare).

Want it to end? Then, quit supporting The US's allies in the region (UAE - emirates, which are ruled by an emir , Kuwait - same, Iraq - both during and post Saddam, Turkey - a country which also randomly slaughters Kurds, Saudi Arabia - a member of their royal family was the mastermind behind 9/11, and Egypt wasn't, and still isn't, exactly democratic either...Israel is the only half democratic nation we support int he region, but they're so militaristic like we are that it's hard to get on their side sometimes).

The irony of it all is that the one Muslim country that was well on its way to democracy and modern women's rights was Iran, but then we forced a hardline government on them and then look what happened.

Don't criticize from high above if you can't walk a mile in the sandals, leading their camels.

Wow, thanks 25. I wasn't aware I was supporting them in the first place. Good thing I had you to set me straight! I feel so much better now.

That's disgusting and horrifying, and yet somehow a little touching.

Is Cienna gonna pull or AT LSEAST update this bullshit story? It's already spreading like wilde fire on Facebook and shit. Way to go Stranger.

I would fuck the corpse of the Daily Mail, if only to confirm that it was really dead.

@10: Violent deaths from the Egyptian Revolution of 2011: 846
Violent deaths from the Second Gulf War: 151,000
Do you just make shit up off the top of your head?

@20 I think it is the readers' job to point out when the Stranger or any other source fucks up, so I disagree. Which isn't to say that the Stranger doesn't need to vet as well; they do. And if you think that the other people who commented -- calling Egyptians "monkeys," "stupid," "savages;" calling Islam a "gutter religion;" -- don't deserve to be mocked for these comments, I think you're wrong there, too. Sure, the false story didn't cause these trolls to feel this way, but it sure as hell brought them out from under their rocks. Maybe they could return there.

@21 Thanks. A colleague helped me track this too.

@22 I believe that these are part of the same fake story, but am not positive. Some daughters of leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood hold PhDs, so I don't think those Islamists are interested in stopping women from getting educated. If the education part of the story is true, there is almost no chance of this becoming law given Egyptians' value of education, including for women.

@30 That Iraq war dead estimate, while still appalling, is suspiciously low. Must be the number the State Department finally cops to. I think the finally tally of "violent" deaths according to the Lancet study was over 300,000 or some such. With over 600,000 dead total directly related to the war. We probably will never now how many. Either way it is insanely more than the total deaths from the entire Arab Spring.

@31 Oh. No. Mock those idiots as much as you want. I ignore them entirely.

But it's the Stranger that needs to actually live up to this new Pulitzer Winner masthead, right?

@31 In fact WHY is this thread even here at all since now we know the story is entirely bogus? Where the fuck is the writer who started it? God forbid the Stranger actually admit to a mistake.

@33 Sure, I'm with you there. I'm curious as to why it hasn't been retracted when it seems like the rest of the worl is catching on. And yeah, if you're flaunting a Pulitzer -- much deserved for that work, I might add -- you should aspire to at least gtting shit right. The story will come down or be corrected at some point soon, I imagine. I mean, it has to. Right?

@35 Riiiiiiiight.

After all they ALL have the journalistic integrity of Pulitzer winners!

Sigh. I miss Eli, already. I hope the Atlantic pays him well. Ooops. Did I say that out loud?

Well, finally.

Well, at least this proves that the Central Scrutinizer is not AT ALL good at scrutinizing...

AS IF WE NEEDED MORE PROOF

My bad, forgot to toe the party line. Religion bad, but Islam gets the free pass.

Awesomely done, carnivorous chicken. Way to help out in this thread.

The Stranger's idea of a correction: Putting "Fake" in front of the original headline. What a poor fucking excuse of a newspaper and a so-called reporter.

@41 Yeah. She blames "The Internet."

Cienna, how about this:

"I apologize for misleading thousands of people who breathlessly reposted this story to their Facebook profiles all afternoon contributing to the racist anti-Muslim zeitgeist- and who continue to do so. I made a poor judgement. Next time I will fucking research this shit before I post. Like a Pulitzer Award Winning paper would."

THIS IS HORRIBLE WHY DIDN'T SHE STUDY EGYPTIAN LAW FIRST

@42 Last time I checked Islam isn't a race. Perhaps the word you are looking for is anti-theist.

@43 or maybe, I dunno, use Google.

Or call/email one the nations leading Middle Eastern Scholars, Ellis Goldberg, right here at the UW (http://nisralnasr.blogspot.com/ and https://www.facebook.com/ellis.goldberg) and ask him?

Or maybe wonder why there is no mention of the supposed law on Al Jazeera or Egypt Independent or any other English language Middle Eastern/North African papers?

Wow. That took my like one minute to search all that. Eh. What do I know. I'm not a reporter. Certainly not one for a Pulitzer Prize winning paper.

@39 I usually ignore the trolls, but you don't seem smart enough to realize that you are conflating Islam with what was purportedly some Egyptian Islamists (the original source was actually one nutcase Moroccan).

@40 Thanks Gus. Just doing my job. Literally.

@25:
"The average of conception in the world is 13 1/2 years old, and the average of motherhood is 14 1/2."

You have a link for that..?

When I saw this story yesterday, the first thing I did was try to confirm it. I, unlike the first several posters on this page, actually CHECK sources and don't blindly accept anything I see on the internet. You tools who believed this story at face value and used it as proof of the evils of Islam really should be embarrassed by your gullibility, but you won't be. You'll just continue to accept everything put in front of you. Life is easier for you that way. Also, it would be refreshing to see just one of you say 'I was wrong, I jumped the gun', but that will never happen either.

@49--(speaking only for myself, obviously) I'd like to think that if I was too credulous too quickly, that reflects my generally dim view of humanity, rather than Islam, or Egyptians in particular.

Also, there's really no need to be such a smug twat about it.

!!!! مسكتك

April Fools, infidels!