All entries by this author

Sohrab Ahmari on democracy and demagoguery *

Dec 5th, 2011 | Filed by

Beneath the ultramodern veneer of skyscrapers dotting Abu Dhabi’s desert landscape lies an illiberal society that severely curtails citizens’ fundamental rights.… Read the rest



UN Women is in trouble *

Dec 5th, 2011 | Filed by

Little money, turf wars, and tepid support bordering on neglect.… Read the rest



Pakistani family on trial for honor killing in Belgium *

Dec 5th, 2011 | Filed by

Sadia Sheikh left the family home to study after her parents tried to arrange a marriage with a cousin she had never met. She was shot dead on October 22, 2007.… Read the rest



Unreasoning awe

Dec 5th, 2011 1:59 pm | By

One from the “how did I miss this?” file – Tony Blair is gobsmacked that it was government policy not to appoint a Catholic as ambassador to the Vatican.

The former prime minister tells a BBC Northern Ireland documentary – to be broadcast from Wednesday 17 February – that the policy of banning Catholics from the post was “stupid”, “ridiculous” and “discriminatory”.

Really? Is it discriminatory not to appoint a lobbyist for cigarette manufacturers to a health-related job? Is it discriminatory not to appoint a murderer to run a domestic violence shelter?

Has Tony Blair never heard of the concept “conflict of interest”? The question answers itself; of course he has. Yet the idea that Catholicism might be an interest … Read the rest

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



Austerity for the Vatican? *

Dec 5th, 2011 | Filed by

Of course not. Marc Alan Di Martino looks at the accounts.… Read the rest



A perfect storm of press releases

Dec 5th, 2011 8:56 am | By

Some more on the Burzynski clinic and the Observer.

From Keir Liddle at the Twenty-first Floor on a perfect storm for skepticism.

The characterisation of skeptical bloggers as aggressive and sanctimonious is unfortunately nothing new and there are undoubtedly skeptics out there who benefit from reading Hayley Stevens post on the subject but I for one am fed up of how we are characterised.  We are seen at best as spoilsports and at worst know it alls robbing the universe of beauty and people of hope. We seem to seen as the lackeys of either big pharma or representatives of some sort of scientific hegemony intent on unweaving the rainbow. But most skeptics aren’t like that in the slightest,

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



Opposition to gay marriage is a unity device *

Dec 5th, 2011 | Filed by

Scotland for Marriage means marriage as a privilege from which some groups are barred – just as Focus on the Family means some families aren’t included.… Read the rest



Flying around the internet

Dec 4th, 2011 4:27 pm | By

Skeptical Humanities on the Observer on Burzynski:

Entire communities throw untold sums of money at the slimmest (nonexistent, really) hope that these patients will recover at the Burzynski Clinic, and the Observer finds this uplifting.

Uncritically giving a cancer quack uncritical press? How could we possibly have mistaken that for promotion? We should have just called it as it was: a shoddy, pathetic, and irresponsible attempt at journalism.

The Internet apologizes for not making this clearer.

Now do you f*cking job and protect Billie, her family, and your readers from this immense fraud.

RJB

Please consider donating to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. They turn nobody away, even if they can’t pay. Unlike Burzynski.

Quackometer on the Observer Read the rest

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



Free Razan

Dec 4th, 2011 4:08 pm | By

Read the rest

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



The Observer still doesn’t understand Burzynski *

Dec 4th, 2011 | Filed by

Entire communities throw untold sums of money at the slimmest hope that these patients will recover at the Burzynski Clinic, and the Observer finds this uplifting.… Read the rest



We never

Dec 4th, 2011 3:37 pm | By

One or two points about that first Observer article, because that blame-the-bloggers not-pology is so annoying.

One, Stephen Pritchard wrote yesterday, truculently,

that concern should have been in the article, but because it was absent doesn’t mean that the paper was promoting the treatment, as some have suggested (“pimping” it, as one science writer so crudely tweeted).

No, the fact that the concern was absent doesn’t mean that the paper was promoting the treatment, but all the same, the paper (via the article) was to some extent promoting the treatment. Bainbridge called it “a pioneering treatment” when it’s a trial rather than a treatment, and “pioneering” makes it sound new and potentially promising as opposed to more than 30 … Read the rest

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



A sustained attack on the paper

Dec 4th, 2011 12:44 pm | By

The Observer has responded to bloggers’ responses to its uncritical story about a fundraising campaign to send a child to the Burzynski clinic. Stephen Pritchard writes:

Yet what was intended as a gripping, human-interest story quickly drew a sustained attack on the paper for apparently offering unquestioning support for a highly controversial cancer treatment, known at antineoplaston therapy.

That seems like an unnervingly irresponsible way to look at the matter. However gripping a human-interest story may be, surely it’s irresponsible (at least) to report a campaign to enable a very expensive very dubious “treatment” as if it were just a gripping story.

Pritchard then explains that desperate parents are desperate, and then rebukes critics for not getting that.

And

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



Quackometer: the Observer’s response is a disgrace *

Dec 4th, 2011 | Filed by

The response attempts to justify its coverage and blames bloggers for “aggression, sanctimony and a disregard for the facts.”… Read the rest



Dinosaur quiverfull

Dec 4th, 2011 11:12 am | By

Wow.

 What an amazing find. That’s fifteen juvenile dinosaurs in one nest. They’re thought to be about a year old. Fifteen juveniles in one nest! I was already puzzling about that before I read the text – which confirms that it’s puzzling.

Scientists  once believed that dinosaurs generally followed a crocodile-like model  of child care—they would lay their eggs and leave their nests for good.  This idea was replaced by the view that dinosaurs raised their  young for a time after hatching, the way many birds do.

Now,  Fastovsky explained, people understand that the ancient reptiles had  parenting styles unlike those of any animals alive today.

Fifteen  babies, as seen in the newfound fossil nest, is an unusually large  number

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



Nest full of dinosaur babies found in Mongolia *

Dec 4th, 2011 | Filed by

Unlike other dinosaur nests found with fossil eggs, the babies in this nest appear to have been about a year old when they died. Parental care!… Read the rest



Observer complains of “vitriol” over Burzynski article *

Dec 3rd, 2011 | Filed by

Also “aggression, sanctimony and a disregard for the facts.”… Read the rest



Islamists win 65% of votes in Egypt *

Dec 3rd, 2011 | Filed by

The MB’s Freedom and Justice Party, about 40%, and the Salafist Nour Party, about 25%.… Read the rest



More whacked-out causation

Dec 3rd, 2011 3:53 pm | By

They seem to have a shaky grasp on what causes what, in Saudi Arabia.

A report in Saudi Arabia has warned that if Saudi women were given the right to drive, it would spell the end of virginity in the country.

See? That’s bizarre. If Saudi women drove, babies would be born non-virgins? How? How would that work?

Though there is no formal ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia, if they get behind the wheel, they can be arrested.

That too is bizarre. If there’s no actual law against women driving, what can they be arrested for?

As part of his careful reform process, King Abdullah has allowed suggestions to surface that the ban might be reviewed.

This

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



UK police reveal numbers for “honour” violence *

Dec 3rd, 2011 | Filed by

Ikwro director Diana Nammi said families often tried to deny the existence of honour
attacks and those who carried them out were “very much respected”.… Read the rest



What’s the big idea?

Dec 3rd, 2011 12:30 pm | By

Just for the sake of argument, or exploration, let’s take seriously this claim that atheism is a little idea and god is a big one.

Atheism has become a very little idea, an idea that has to be shouted to seem important.  And that is a shame, because God was a big idea, and the rejection of the existence of God was also a big idea, once upon a time.

Was god a big idea?

Perhaps I’m not taking it seriously after all, because I can’t honestly see that it was.

Really. I can’t. It seems to me that god was and is a very little idea, and a very boring one (which shows how little it was and … Read the rest

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