Just a thought

Oct 31st, 2012 3:28 pm | By

Also -

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Reap Paden is another Mencken, or even Hitchens

Oct 31st, 2012 2:58 pm | By

I kid, I kid.

But he tries!

He drops in here with his totally cool angry atheist avatar and his rapier wit, and he puts me in my place.

I apologize if someone has already made this point–

Ophelia I think I can speak on behalf of at least a whole hell of a lot of people when I ask “When are you going to deflate your head and come down for a landing?” Some of the incredible things I have seen you post lately make me wonder if you have been eating too much cat food or something.

I plan to make “I think I can speak on behalf of at least a whole hell of a lot of … Read the rest

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“You’re all a of bunch of feminists!”

Oct 31st, 2012 2:53 pm | By

Martin Pribble reminds us of the Montreal Massacre. On December 6 1989, a guy called Marc Lépine went into a classroom at the École Polytechnique in Montreal. Katherine Ramsland describes what he did there. [trigger warning]

In French, the young man asked the 10 female students to get up and move across the room. He then told the men to leave. No one moved. A few people laughed, as if this were some kind of joke. That was the worst thing they could have done. He had been humiliated enough in his 25 years. On this day, of all days, he was not going to be treated in that way.

Lifting his rifle, he shot twice into the ceiling.

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Innovation

Oct 31st, 2012 7:41 am | By

Thank goodness for Honda, you know, because without it, there wouldn’t be special cars for women only.

It’s nice of them to illustrate what kind of women the car is especially designed for – pretty, young, delicate, graceful, dainty, skirt-wearing, flower-carrying.

Embracing the design-for-women-only trend, Japanese automaker Honda has released a new car model designed especially for women.

The ‘Honda Fit She’s’ has a “Plasmacluster” air-conditioning system that the company claims can improve the driver’s skin quality, and a special windshield glass that blocks out 99% of UV rays—all aimed at lessening the chances of wrinkles.

It sports a pink exterior, pink stitching for its seats, steering wheel and floor mats, and metallic pink bezels around the shift and

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Honda releases a car “for women only” *

Oct 31st, 2012 | Filed by

It’s pink.… Read the rest



Samira Shackle talks to Mukhtar Mai *

Oct 31st, 2012 | Filed by

“As long as I live, I will keep fighting for the rights of women. Rape and cruelty happens everywhere, but here there is no justice for women when they fight.”… Read the rest



Guest post: Why atheists don’t respect faitheists – and you shouldn’t either

Oct 30th, 2012 5:57 pm | By

A guest post by Bruce Gorton.

A faitheist is essentially an atheist who argues for “politeness”in atheist/ religious discourse, in which the polite path is essentially the atheists shut up.

In the civil rights movement these were the “Uncle Toms” and the exact same crew are present in the gay rights movement right now. Ever hear a woman proclaim how much of a feminist she isn’t? It is the same basic deal. If you watch politics, this is the reason why “bipartisan support” has such an ominous ring to it.

It is people who strive to appear reasonable by appealing to what you want to believe, rather than actual reason. We want to believe sexism is a thing of the Read the rest

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Making law retroactively

Oct 30th, 2012 2:59 pm | By

News from Poland. There’s this guy Robert Darski, of the rock group Behemoth. He tore up a bible onstage once. You know what happened next. But he was acquitted! Good.

Not so fast, chum.

Poland’s Supreme Court concluded on Monday that a person may be found guilty of offending religious sensibilities even if the defendant had not “directly” intended to do so.

The court was examining the matter in relation to an appeal against the 2011 aquittal of Robert Darski – frontman of internationally renowned rock group Behemoth – who tore up a copy of the bible on stage.

Darski’s case will now be re-examined by a district court.

No such thing as double jeopardy in Poland, apparently.

At the … Read the rest

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Poland: bible-tearer may have acquittal overturned *

Oct 30th, 2012 | Filed by

Tearing up a bible at a rock concert is “the crime of offending religious sensibilities.”… Read the rest



No one wants to hear the whiny sound of a female voice

Oct 30th, 2012 12:00 pm | By

Australian broadcast journalist Tracey Spicer wrote an open letter to Mr Misogynist to thank him for all he’s taught her over the years.

There was the sage advice

from a radio boss during a job interview some years ago.

He put it simply yet eloquently: ”There’s a reason why you don’t hear women on  commercial talkback radio,” he said. ”No one wants to hear the whiny sound of  a female voice. Us blokes get enough nagging at home!”

Yeeah. And blokes are the only people who listen to radio, and all of them “get nagging at home,” and all female voices are whiny, and and and.

On another occasion,

”Anyway Trace. You’re getting a bit long in the tooth. Why

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Broadcast journalist’s open letter to Dear Mr Misogynist *

Oct 30th, 2012 | Filed by

”There’s a reason why you don’t hear women on commercial talkback radio,” he said. ”No one wants to hear the whiny sound of a female voice. Us blokes get enough nagging at home!”… Read the rest



Kunwar Khuldune Shahid on blaming the ideology, part 2 *

Oct 30th, 2012 | Filed by

Women were ordered to be killed for conspiring against the religion by their ideological predecessors, so is it entirely the Taliban’s fault for following precedent?… Read the rest



The theodicy of eating one’s children

Oct 30th, 2012 10:48 am | By

And speaking of theodicy…Chris Hallquist tweeted about Biblical books with references to God making people eat their own family members. Oh? Yes. He provided a link.

“And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.” — Leviticus 26:29

“And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters.” — Deuteronomy 28:53

“And toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat them.” — Deuteronomy 28:57

“And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat

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Turkish police fire tear gas at secularist march *

Oct 30th, 2012 | Filed by

Thousands of secularists protested at a banned rally in Ankara against what they see as an increasingly authoritarian and Islamist government.… Read the rest



The Holy God of Israel will judge

Oct 30th, 2012 10:11 am | By

It’s reassuring to see that the theodicists are on the job. They know why Sandy, and they’re letting us know. Sandy of course is because the homosexuals. John McTernan knows.

I want to clear something up. I am not saying this super destructive hurricane was because of the homosexual act. The Holy God of Israel will judge individuals for their sinful acts.

What I am saying is the judgment is for the government promoting homosexual “marriage” as an ordinance. Once a nation legalizes sin, like abortion and homosexual “marriage”: that nations falls under the direct judgment of the Holy God of Israel. God does not destroy a nation right away but first warns.

Also, The judgment comes from more

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Here comes the hurricane theodicy *

Oct 30th, 2012 | Filed by

Israel. Teh gaze. Abortion. Hard Left Fascism. Teh gaze. Don’t forget teh gaze.… Read the rest



In the Freethinker

Oct 29th, 2012 4:51 pm | By

Oh look, my first column for the Freethinker is online.

It starts with…

National Public Radio’s religious affairs reporter Barbara Bradley Hagerty did a story about the reactionary (not that she used that word) trend in the Catholic Church the other day. She spoke to the Bishop of Lincoln (Nebraska), who told her that when it comes to doctrines, the church is not a democracy.

“These are not open to votes,” Bruskewitz said. “These are what God has revealed, and the custody of that revelation is of course in the possession of the Church.”

Bruskewitz said the Church can’t compromise its views just because the secular world doesn’t like them.

And then it goes on.

 … Read the rest

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A thoughtful, fair, reasoned profile of the worst woman in the universe

Oct 29th, 2012 3:51 pm | By

This is a parody. I am being sarcastic. No bison were harmed in the making of this parody.

I have a question. It is this. Why does this one woman that I hate and that a lot of people hate get so much sexist abuse via the Internet? Why why oh why?

While this post applies to several prominent and outspoken women in the atheist community that I hate, I’m going to focus on this one woman because she seems to be the easiest target for most of the sexist online vitriol. Her name is Annabelle Jones and everybody hates her, including me. That makes it much easier for me to focus on her, because there is so much hate … Read the rest

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Go look for the big old mess

Oct 29th, 2012 2:37 pm | By

Jonah Lehrer. Recycling old material aka self-plagiarism. Not correcting mistakes. A culture that fosters and rewards such things. Science writing. Carl Zimmer draws them all together in order to talk about the difficulty of doing good science writing and why it’s important to keep it in mind.

I was willing to cut Lehrer some slack at first, but as the additional evidence came in, I wondered if I was making excuses for him. The breaking point came when I read about how he had warped a story about a memory prodigy, claiming that he had memorized all of Dante’s Inferno instead of just the first few lines. When someone noted the error, Lehrer blamed it on his editor, but kept

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Carl Zimmer in praise of the big old mess of science *

Oct 29th, 2012 | Filed by

When you find yourself captivated by someone talking to you about science in a way that makes you feel everything’s wonderfully simple, go look for the big old mess.… Read the rest