All entries by this author

The pope has a butler *

Aug 13th, 2012 | Filed by

Who will go on trial for leaking papers out of a desire to combat “evil and corruption everywhere in the Church,” according to a prosecutor in the case.… Read the rest



Vocal and unabashed

Aug 13th, 2012 11:49 am | By

PZ also did a post on Liberal Will, which has a squillion comments which include a sub-theme that Rebecca and I are not/are “radical feminists” and what is a radical feminist anyway.

The sub-theme starts with

although someone did allege Rebecca Watson and Ophelia Benson were “radical feminists” — they’re really not —

They may not be, but they sure give off that impression.

and continues with several people saying “under what definition?” Ibis gives the right answer.

When people call Ophelia or Rebecca “radical feminists” they are using the term as a slur* for “vocal, unabashed feminists”. Just like when people use the term “militant atheists” they are not using it for atheists who are running around

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Should eating a peach be legal?

Aug 13th, 2012 11:11 am | By

Should going for a walk be legal?

Should listening to music be legal?

Should reading poetry be legal?

Should non-marital sex be legal?

It’s not currently legal in Morocco, and as it turns out it’s not even safe to say it should be.

The editor of Morocco’s Al-Ahdath Al-Maghribia daily newspaper, Moktar el-Ghzioui, is living in fear for his life after he expressed support for pre-marital sex during a local television debate.

“The next thing there was a cleric from Oujda releasing a fatwa that I should die,” he says.

“I am very scared for myself and my family. It’s a real blow to all the modernists who thought Morocco was moving forward.”

According to article 490 of the penal

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Morocco: Should pre-marital sex be legal? *

Aug 13th, 2012 | Filed by

Should a cleric issue a fatwa saying a newspaper editor should die for saying yes to that question?… Read the rest



Mars rover makes detailed crater image *

Aug 13th, 2012 | Filed by

This is the first view scientists have had of a fluvial system from the surface of Mars.… Read the rest



Mars rover makes first colour panorama *

Aug 13th, 2012 | Filed by

It’s low resolution, but pretty enough and interesting enough to share, Mike Malin explains.… Read the rest



Drug company suing academic over a paper in NEJM *

Aug 13th, 2012 | Filed by

A large German pharmaceutical company is threatening a Danish academic with libel over a paper  published in The New England Journal of Medicine.… Read the rest



Why homeopathy doesn’t work *

Aug 12th, 2012 | Filed by

The 200C dilution would require 10^320 universes or so just to find one active
particle.… Read the rest



We get the good ones

Aug 12th, 2012 5:11 pm | By

Here’s another comrade – Liberal Will. He’s over there, where Maureen and Alex and Rhys and Hayley and Amy and Melanie and many other swell people are. There are a lot of comrades. Don’t let the blowhards fool you about that. The anti-feminists aren’t taking over.

Even if you’re in the friendliest safe space ever, you need to have a harassment policy. The world does not work on SimCity rules, where you don’t build a fire department until the first fire breaks out. It needs to be there. Harassment at any type of convention is common, and the skeptic community should know pretty damn well it’s a problem, especially after “Elevatorgate“. And women, sadly, are the target

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Olympic fervour

Aug 12th, 2012 3:23 pm | By

Update: Monday: Once again I made the mistake of forgetting that not everyone reading would know what prompted this post. What prompted it was this comment on my post about a dopy BBC film clip about natural selection and slavery and fast runners.

———————————

Oh, so it’s a thing. I didn’t know it was a thing – this “you have to be all ecstatic about the Olympics” bollix. Joan Smith says about it.

Some things matter more than sport. But I’ve come back to my own country to discover Olympic fervour encouraging a species of emotional correctness, where anyone who doesn’t care for competitive games is regarded as a killjoy. It’s like being transported to a Victorian public school,

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Chris Rodda has accepted the challenge

Aug 12th, 2012 2:43 pm | By

Chris Rodda wants it known far and wide that she accepted a challenge from David Barton’s radio co-host to show specifics of where David Barton tells untruths in his book The Jefferson Lies. You have your mission.

Chris knows what she’s talking about. She does the time-consuming work of following up Barton’s references.

Get the word out!… Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Greater vigor of character

Aug 12th, 2012 11:31 am | By

James Fitzjames Stephen was a forthright kind of guy. Blunt, even. As such he offers a useful window into the most forthright kind of imperturbable contempt for women.

From chapter 5 of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, in which he disagrees with John Stuart Mill’s views on gender equality.

Now, if society and government ought to recognize the inequality of age as the foundation of an inequality of rights of this importance, it appears to me at least equally clear that they ought to recognize the inequality of sex for the same purpose, if it is a real inequality. Is it one? There are some propositions which it is difficult to prove, because they are so plain, and this is one

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Au pied du chameau

Aug 12th, 2012 10:13 am | By

I know a new thing now, a thing I didn’t know before. I know that there’s something – something bad – called “camel toe.” I know what it is. I know it via the tweets of Another Angry Woman @stavvers and this post that she linked to, The Miracle Bajingo Shoehorn.

A staggering 55% of women, irrespective of age, size or weight,  experience camel toe at some point.

Many women have even gone to extreme lengths to rectify the camel toe  problem, resorting to expensive and risky surgery.

Now thanks to the Smooth Groove camel toe remedy, all women can get on with  their lives without having to worry about how they look.

After all, being a

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



The Gore Vidal interview that Variety didn’t publish *

Aug 12th, 2012 | Filed by

“I’m very belligerent and I’ve not had it. I’m ready to lead a crusade against the Party of God.”… Read the rest



And who shall ‘scape whipping?

Aug 11th, 2012 4:50 pm | By

A great post by Alyson Miers (whom I met at WiS in May) on bullying and imperfect victims.

There’s this meme -

 See Alyson’s response to that.… Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Next year in Austin

Aug 11th, 2012 4:17 pm | By

This is good. American Atheists announces that Anthony Grayling is the keynote speaker for their 2013 national convention.

Yay! I’m going to be there too, and Anthony’s a friend.

 … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



What you think it means

Aug 11th, 2012 3:49 pm | By

Ok this is a good one. From a comment on Jen’s post on blunderfoot.

“Freethought” means you use reason and logic to come to a conclusion, and not believing everything anyone says — even a close friend — at face value.

Hahahahahahahahaha yes right that’s what freethought means. A close friend tells you she has a headache and you interrogate her for an hour trying to get her to demonstrate that fact beyond a reasonable doubt.… Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



The BBC explains

Aug 11th, 2012 12:42 pm | By

Wow. Have some BBC pseudohistory and pseudogenetics about Y blak guize can runn fast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAw_UeILgeY

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



David Rakoff

Aug 11th, 2012 12:25 pm | By

I’m kind of crushed that David Rakoff went and died. Fresh Air played a couple of interviews with him yesterday. They’re good.

On whether or not he had a happy childhood.

I had a beautiful childhood and a lovely childhood. I just didn’t like being a child. I didn’t like the rank injustice of not being listened to. I didn’t like the lack of autonomy. I didn’t like my chubby little hands that couldn’t manipulate the world of objects in the way that I wanted them to. Being a child, for me, was an exercise in impotent powerlessness.

Oh yes. That’s why youth is wasted on the young, as Shaw pointed out. (Was it Shaw? I think so.) I hatedRead the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



David Rakoff interviews on Fresh Air *

Aug 11th, 2012 | Filed by

“I had a beautiful childhood and a lovely childhood. I just didn’t like being a child. I didn’t like the rank injustice of not being listened to.”… Read the rest