Nice try, Hitch. Back up an observation of misinformed religious practice with generalizations about history to make your point. I could say that the vitriol of political correspondents is leading to the demise of the United States of America. That statement would be worth more than this nonsense. Come on, Slate. Give me some intelligent reading. It's Monday for crying out loud. Mindless football was yesterday.

Well, how do you explain the slaughter of the pigs in Cairo?

Perhaps Mubarek wanted to destroy the livelihood of the Christians so much he didn't care about the garbage?

Perhaps he wants people to die of garbage related disease, like cholera, not flu? Does he have a bet with someone, some other elite?

Speculate, speculate, speculate.

Zealots, whether religious or left wing or right wing, have an ideology to feed, and none of them care about facts, reality, all they care about is their freaking fantasy world, and I know because I used to be one of them...don't let anything get in the way of that absurd fantasy you cooked up in your own head, eh?

My point: stupidity ain't restricted to the faithful, the stupid do sometimes use faith as a crutch, and the faithful ain't all stupid.

Pachomius:

Your statements above add up to nothing. A weird variant on moral relativism, perhaps? A deeply foolish and destructive act occurred in Cairo, and it was almost certainly motivated by islamic stupidity towards pigs.

Pay attention, son. Better to say just, "stupidity." Any thing else points to your bias and ignorance.

So were the death threats against Rushdie merely "barbarism"? I think not - I think information and precision is added by the modifier "islamic barbarism."