The things people dream up!

Aug 8th, 2013 10:01 am | By

A comment by Jadehawk on PZ’s post containing Carrie Poppy’s account of why she quit the JREF cites a post I did on the subject last November. The subject matter was pretty funny then, and it looks even funnier now, so I’m reposting it.

November 26, 2012

Anyone else reckon?

Now that’s really funny. The things people dream up!

Richard Sanderson ‏@RichSandersen

Anyone else reckon @CarriePoppyYES resigned from #JREF because of the abuse from #FTBullies?

Right?

What abuse? And if there were any abuse, why would it prompt Carrie to resign from JREF? It would be like resigning from your job at NASA because someone tailgated you on the Evergreen Point bridge. It … Read the rest

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To cleanse the palate

Aug 7th, 2013 4:20 pm | By

You can look at some anti-suffragette cartoons from the early 20th century, courtesy of Therese Oneill at The Week.

One of the most notable things about the arguments put forth by the anti-suffragette movement was how weak its position was. Anti-suffragette arguments relied heavily on emotional manipulation and downright hateful nastiness. Humor was a much-used weapon against suffragettes. They were easy to depict as embittered old maids, brutal scolds, and cigar-smoking transvestites.

(20th Century London)

Yep. You have your graceful pretty women who don’t want no stinkin voice and then you have your ugly gawky women running around messing everything up. Pretty obvious which one is the right choice, isn’t it!

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The lid is well and truly off

Aug 7th, 2013 3:33 pm | By

Holy shit.

Now Carrie’s gone public. Carrie Poppy, former head of communications for JREF.

I knew about most of what she says. I knew about it while people were trashing me, photoshopping me, calling me names, threatening me, lying about me – partly for being a big meany to DJ Grothe.

Carrie was still at JREF when I got the two bizarre emails and decided not to speak at TAM after all. She was there when DJ replied to my email about this by blaming me for blogging about his nasty comments about women who object to harassment. She knew what a crock of shit that was but she couldn’t tell me so – not until later, not until … Read the rest

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Items

Aug 7th, 2013 12:01 pm | By

Too much incoming today.

Rebecca on Ben Radford Accused of Sexual Harassment.

I’ve heard of several other “big name” skeptics who loudly argue online against any and all anti-harassment measures who are known for actually sexually harassing women in the meatspace. I’m hesitant to name them for legal reasons, because none have ever sexually harassed me personally and the women who told me about them haven’t gone on record. I’m very glad that Radford’s name was leaked, because it’s extraordinarily important that women know who to watch out for and for conference organizers to know who they’re putting on stage.

If you’ve been seriously harassed by a member of the skeptic/atheist community, I hope that you consider publicizing the

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Talking about it

Aug 7th, 2013 9:53 am | By

So I did this yesterday – a live discussion thing at the Huffington Post, with Rebecca and Sikivu. It was about the atheism-women issue.

It was an interesting day to have such a discussion.

 … Read the rest

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Is that Bugs Bunny?

Aug 6th, 2013 5:33 pm | By

Good old politics – it’s not a sport for sissies! And it’s even less a sport for the politically correct, amirite?

A Republican PAC had this funny idea…

A Republican Super PAC has put out a new online “game” where they ask their supporters to virtually slap Hillary Clinton across the face.

The Super PAC is known as The Hillary Project and is an anti-Hillary Clinton group that lists Christopher Marston–a Republican campaign consultant and a former member of the Bush administration–as its treasurer.

Geddit? Funny, right? It’s like that so so funny game where people could beat the shit out of Anita Sarkeesian. Gaming isn’t for the politically correct either. Nor is philosophy, or scifi, or skepticism…

Violence against

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600 lashes

Aug 6th, 2013 3:40 pm | By

There’s the liberal Saudi blogger sentenced to 7 years in prison and 600 lashes for “insulting Islam” and being liberal and disobeying his daddy and god knows what other horseshit. The usual Saudi horseshit.

The Criminal Court found Raif Badawi, the founder of the Free Saudi Liberals website, guilty of insulting Islam through his website and in comments he made on television, and added three months to his term for “parental disobedience.”

The charges against Badawi were based solely on his peaceful exercise of his right to free expression, Human Rights Watch said. Badawi established his online platform in 2008, to encourage debate on religious and political matters in Saudi Arabia.

Well, Saudi Arabia’s attitude to that is that it … Read the rest

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Holy holy

Aug 6th, 2013 2:52 pm | By

Time for a laugh, again. Via American Atheists on Facebook.

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“Maybe you misread him?”

Aug 6th, 2013 11:30 am | By

Update: Ok I knew this when I wrote the post but I refrained from saying so (for the time being), but PZ posted about it a little before I did and he got a ton of emails all saying is it ___? and saying the same name. The guy in this account is Ben Radford.

____________________________________________________________

Oh gosh, sexual harassment again. Again? Yes, again. (Also, still.)

Karen Stollznow reports on hers at the SciAm blog.

“I was sexually harassed for four years,” I admitted to  a colleague recently. “That’s awful!” he bellowed in outrage and  genuine concern, before he promptly changed the subject. Sexual harassment  is an uncomfortable topic to discuss with colleagues, especially when you’re the victim.

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I love how

Aug 5th, 2013 6:04 pm | By

Meta meta meta. Discussion of discussion of discussion.

Discussion of discussion of Tim Farley’s post on oolon’s block bot.

The stupid burns, says Travis Roy. Tim Farley comments:

I love how the follow-on blogs are all entirely focused on one section, about 10% of the 4,300 word post. Principle of Charity? What’s a principle of charity?

That’s annoying. That’s very annoying.

There is no rule that says you’re not allowed to disagree with one part of an essay or blog post. That rule does not exist. Now if an essay or blog post is one argument and nothing else, such that it’s not possible to address only a part of it, then fine. But that was far from the case … Read the rest

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When talking to a woman, be sure to add gratuitous insults

Aug 5th, 2013 12:52 pm | By

That seems to be the policy of Willis Eschenbach, who wrote An Open Letter to Dr. Marcia McNutt, new Editor-In-Chief, Science Magazine. He found a picture of her, too, which confirmed that she is indeed a woman, just as her name would suggest.

Eschenbach’s open letter is about the tragic decline of Science mag due to its move from science to advocacy, specifically on climate change. Nothing to do with the fact that McNutt is a woman, one would think, yet Eschenbach drags that in anyway, for the sake of gratuitously insulting and patronizing her, as if that really were written down in a real book of rules.

He patronizes her from the outset, patronizingly congratulating her and including the … Read the rest

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Guest post: Very Naturopathy

Aug 5th, 2013 11:29 am | By

A guest post by SpokesGay.

Socializing as a liberal in Vermont is sometimes difficult, and for non-obvious reasons. Last night was a potluck at Neighbor’s house. About 20 people. The kitchen was, as usual, filled with people eating and drinking, the table overflowing with food. Crowded and convivial.

“Mommy” is one of the social circle. She has two children and a third on the way in about a month. She believes the physical travails of pregnancy—including her difficulty having an orgasm with Daddy in her third trimester—make up the most compelling cocktail chatter. “Maybe that’s the secret to not having another late baby,” she mused in a recliner with a can of sparkling water infused with 100% all-natural essential berry-ness. … Read the rest

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Time passes, people change

Aug 4th, 2013 4:31 pm | By

It’s a theme among the people who hate feminists dirtying up their atheism their skepticism their skeptoatheism and atheoskepticism, that we dirtying-up feminists are in some way outrageous for doing feminism instead of or in addition to skepticism or atheism or athoskeptolibertarianism.

Huh.

That’s a strange claim. What’s outrageous about it? I guess if they’re talking about people who have prominently displayed somewhere a solemn oath always to talk/write/tweet about atheism or skepticism and nothing else, then…those people broke an oath. But even then – an oath to whom? Who cares? Why would anyone swear such an oath anyway? And why would anyone else care about it?

I’m in a fortunate position, myself, because I never said or implied or … Read the rest

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Apologies and threats collide in midair

Aug 4th, 2013 12:52 pm | By

Tony Wang of Twitter UK issued an apology for the harassment yesterday.

Twitter’s UK boss Tony Wang and senior director Del Harvey have apologized profusely to Caroline Criado-Perez, Stella Creasey and the leagues of other women who have received tweets that threaten death or rape in a response to their activism — including a handful of female journalists who have received bomb threats.

Ok.

And now, the changes: Wang says that an in-tweet “report abuse” button was in the latest version of Twitter for Apple smartphones, and from next month on it will be available on Twitter.com and Android phones — in other words, users don’t have to use the “Help” page to report abuse. The Twitter Rules page has

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A string of subtle but demeaning comments

Aug 4th, 2013 11:42 am | By

The journalist Olivia Messer was pleased to return to her home state of Texas to write about the legislature. She quickly realized there was a down side.

Within weeks, I’d already heard a few horrifying stories. Like the time a former Observer staffer, on her first day in the Capitol, was invited by a state senator back to his office for personal “tutoring.” Or, last session, when Rep. Mike “Tuffy” Hamilton interrupted Marisa Marquez during a House floor debate to ask if her breasts were real or fake.

Thankfully I never experienced anything so sexually explicit. Instead, I encountered a string of subtle but demeaning comments. One of the first interviews I conducted for the Observer, in February,

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Affirm, not swear

Aug 4th, 2013 10:48 am | By

So Barney Frank came out as an atheist.

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

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Captions

Aug 3rd, 2013 5:44 pm | By

Via Gnu Atheism on Facebook.

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There was that stolen apple, too

Aug 3rd, 2013 5:17 pm | By

There’s a Kenyan lawyer, Dola Indidis, who is trying to sue Israel for…

…now take a deep breath…

…for the “trial and crucifixion of Jesus Christ.”

Um. Statute of limitations, bro. Also – lack of evidence. Story. Story not evidence. The Iliad not evidence of the murder of Hector.

A Kenyan lawyer has filed a petition with the International Court of Justice in  The Hague, suggesting that the trial and crucifixion of Jesus Christ was  unlawful, and the State of Israel among others should be held responsible,  Kenyan news outlet the Nairobian reported on Friday.

Dola Indidis, a  lawyer and former spokesman of the Kenyan Judiciary, is reportedly attempting to sue Tiberius (emperor of Rome, 42 BCE-37 CE), Pontius Pilate,

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In order to use the licence fee efficiently

Aug 3rd, 2013 4:13 pm | By

The BBC sent a boilerplate response to all the complaints about the block bot and the BBC’s vile attack on the character of people the BBC never mentioned.

The report on Newsnight on 30 July which featured The Block Bot was part of an ongoing news story on the use of Twitter and its consequences, which has generated a great deal of debate across all forms of media. We received a number of contacts about this broadcast and in order to reply promptly and to use the licence fee efficiently we are sending a single response to everyone. However we would like to reassure you that your concerns about the programme were brought to the attention of Newsnight and senior

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An “intellectual romance”

Aug 3rd, 2013 12:27 pm | By

The New York Times had a piece about Colin McGinn yesterday, and (better) about the implications for paying attention to sexism in philosophy and universities.

While the status of women in the sciences has received broad national attention, debate about sexism in philosophy has remained mostly within the confines of academia. But the revelation this summer that Colin McGinn, a star philosopher at the University of Miami, had agreed to leave his tenured post after allegations of sexual harassment brought by a graduate student, has put an unusually famous name to the problem, exposing the field to what some see as a healthy dose of sunlight.

“People are thinking, ‘Wow, he had to resign, and we know about it,’

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