There’s a new documentary, Mission Congo by Lara Zizic and David Turner, that alleges some very dubious activities by Pat Robertson. Charity bait-and-switch fraud allegations.

Robertson has a non-profit organization, Operation Blessing International (OBI). He’s in a position to raise a lot of money for it, given the 700 Club and the Christian Broadcasting Network and all. He can just say send money, and people send money. He said send money specifically to aid refugees from the Rwandan genocide who fled to camps in DR Congo.

Chris McGreal, a journalist for The Guardian who was stationed at the refugee camp in Goma, recalled a strange sight. The camp was plagued by a cholera epidemic, which claimed over 40,000 lives.

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UNESCO has a new finding: 54 million of the world’s 76 million illiterate young women live in just 9 countries.

Notice that Bangladesh is the one place on the list where there are more illiterate young men. I wonder why that is.… Read the rest

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Hey get a JOB. Hey if you don’t like me harassing you, GET OFF THE INTERNET. Hey if you don’t like the words “under God” in the pledge of allegiance, YOU DON’T HAVE TO LIVE HERE.

That last item of ignorant bullying is from a Fox News personality, Dana Perino. She really did say that.

Massachusetts’ highest court is currently hearing a case against the Pledge brought by atheist parents, who feel that due to its religious wording, atheist children “are denied meaningful participation in this patriotic exercise.” The case specifically involves the phrase, “under God,” which was not actually a part of the original phrasing of the Pledge.

Regarding atheists, Perino said during a live segment, “I’m

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It’s everywhere. Classical music for instance.

Marin Alsop, who will on Saturday night  be the first female conductor to tackle the Last Night of the Proms in its 118-year history, has suggested society is still uncomfortable seeing women in authority roles such as hers.

In interview with the Guardian, she said: “There is no logical reason to stop women from conducting. The baton isn’t heavy. It weighs about an ounce. No superhuman strength is required. Good musicianship is all that counts. As a society we have a lack of comfort in seeing women in these ultimate authority roles. Still none of the ‘big five’ orchestras has had a female music director.”

And the lack of comfort is created by … Read the rest

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From the Onion:

Courage requires us to remain steadfast in our beliefs. It asks that we stand by the convictions we express and never give an inch, no matter what the cost. However off base, wrongheaded, or patently false a position we’ve staked out may be, courage nonetheless demands that we blindly pound home our stupid fucking point, never letting up.

Brave hero!

What is the measure of bravery? I think part of it has to do with how firmly we stand our ground when we have absolutely no fucking clue what we’re talking about.

Another part involves having the mental strength to steel our minds against any reasonable argument that might challenge one of our beliefs. This means

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Suzanne Moore is perhaps even more annoyed about Femen and Victor Svyatski.

If only men ran feminism, we wouldn’t be in the mess we are in. We wouldn’t have to worry about offending them or arguing among ourselves. We would simply take instruction from consultants on gender struggle. Only the prettiest would be allowed to fight the gender jihad. And we would have to do it topless.

You can’t make this stuff up. And I am not. It turns out that that Femen, the Ukrainian feminist group known for semi-naked media stunts, slogan “Our mission is protest, our weapons are bare breasts” was actually founded by a man, Victor Svyatski. It gets weirder. This

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Oh good grief.

Bim Adewunmi at Comment is Free last Wednesday:

Australian film-maker Kitty Green has named Victor Svyatski as the wizard behind the curtain of Ukrainian feminist group Femen. Green alleges that Svyatski not only supports the group, as Femen had previously acknowledged, but actually founded the organisation, as well hand-selecting the “prettiest girls” for their topless protests. Love or loathe Femen – and it is no secret that I am no fan of theirs – this is plain depressing.

For the documentary, Ukraine Is Not a Brothel, which is being shown at the Venice film festival, Green recorded an interview with Svyatski in which he acknowledges he may have started the group to meet women. His

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The Observer introduced her last week:

She fought to give women the right to divorce. She campaigned for civil partnerships and against slavery. She was a passionate feminist who died for her ideals – and all this in the late 18th century. Now one of France’s greatest honours could be bestowed on Olympe de Gouges, a woman considered by many to be one of the world’s first feminist campaigners.

De Gouges is one of a handful of women being considered for membership of the Panthéon, France’s secular necropolis. Kickstarting a national campaign, the feminist movement Osez le féminisme (Dare to be a feminist) has just launched an e-petition to put pressure on President François Hollande to admit more women

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But they’re much funnier in Texas than those lame-ass Nova Scotians. The hilarious thing to do in Texas is stick a decal on the tailgate of your pickup that makes it look as if there’s a woman tied up in the back of the truck.

Geddit? Killer funny, right?

At a glance, the decal is extremely convincing and acts as an optical illusion to make someone think there is an actual woman tied up in the bed of a truck.

But a closer look reveals that the optical illusion is simply a decal, and there is no woman in distress.

The decal is the handy work of Hornet Signs, a marketing and advertising company in Waco.

According to Brad Kolb,

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Fun and games for the start of a new year at St Mary’s University in Halifax: a chant about the joys of raping underage girls (“o is for oh so tight” is one stanza).

The questionable cheer is based on the word YOUNG – “Y is for your sister … U is for underage, N is for no consent … Saint Mary’s boys we like them young.”

O you already have; “G is for grab that ass” is the other redacted one.

The students didn’t notice anything wrong with it, but now they do. Not noticing seems rather inattentive.

In response, the university is calling in an expert on bullying. (Uh oh – let’s hope it’s not Kristina Hansen … Read the rest

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Stephanie has a post about standards and how we decide whom to believe and related subjects. In it she links to a document that reveals some important background information.

So here we have to weigh Sarah’s word against that of Cornwell, now the former RDFRS executive director. This would be harder for me if Cornwell didn’t have a history of using falsehood to deflect negative attention from Dawkins. She did this in the forum debacle a few years ago. (Yes, that email has been verified with someone who worked for RDFRS at the time. No, the source of the verification is not Timonen.) She did this by privately “clarifying” that Paula Kirby wasn’t part of Dawkins’ foundation when people were

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American Atheists posted a statement on Facebook a few hours ago in response to Sarah Moglia’s post at Skepchick.

A recent blog post by Sarah Moglia alleges that American Atheists President Dave Silverman acquiesced to a demand by Richard Dawkins in September 2011 that he choose between Rebecca Watson and Dr. Dawkins as speakers at the Reason Rally in March 2012.

American Atheists and Mr. Silverman do not condone, support, or participate in the practice of allowing potential convention speakers, or convention supporters, sponsors, or attendees, to blacklist or attempt to blacklist other potential speakers and attendees.

While Mr. Silverman does not dispute that an exchange with Dr. Dawkins took place in Miami in September of 2011, there was

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A guest post by the philosophical primate, extracted from a comment on Prison disagreed with him.

In calling him a bully and a coward, I addressed Castro’s moral character, and expressed a character judgment. That has bugger all to do with retributive justice.

In fact, one of the aims of a legitimate, socially constructive penal system (which we do not have in this country) is that it offers those convicted of crimes the opportunity and resources to reform their character, to become better human beings. As you said, rehabilitation should be our aim, not retribution — and what is rehabilitation but character reform? But even in American prisons, for all their flaws, some people have used their time in … Read the rest

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Speaking of that Aja Romano piece (as I was yesterday) – she heard from a lot of Team Slime people, on her article and on Twitter. One was Aneris23, who tried to tweet her the right way of seeing things.

Aja Romano to Aneris

wait am I literally watching a guy debate semantics around the words “I want to kick you in the cunt”?

like of course he’s not serious, WHY IS HE DEFENDING A GUY WHO THINKS THAT’S AN OKAY THING TO SAY. like, before anything else, no.

 The he doing the defending is Justicar; the link “Aneris” gave is to one of Justicar’s many tedious self-important videos. So, curious about that particular bit, I took a … Read the rest

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So there’s this now – Sarah Moglia got a job as an Event Specialist with the Secular Student Alliance right after she graduated from college. Her first task was to help plan a tour for Richard Dawkins’ children’s book, The Magic of Reality. The first stop of the tour was in Miami.

Hours before the first event, there were people lining up outside the doors. As a member of the team, I was allowed in the auditorium before the event began. It was me, Dave Silverman (President of American Atheists), Elizabeth Cornwell (Executive Director of the Richard Dawkins Foundation), Sean Faircloth (then newly-hired Director of Strategy and Policy for RDF), and Richard Dawkins himself.

At this time (September of

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One of the things I hate more than some of the other things in The Great Community Wars is the cry of “get a JOB!!”

Like the cry quoted by Aja Romano in a Daily Dot piece on the latest front in The Great Community Wars, mockingly dubbed #tablegate.

Skeptics seized upon the discrepancies in Watson’s post and launched a heated backlash. One of the most outspoken critics of the incident was the ironically named Uberfeminist, a skeptics/atheists blog heavily focused on critiquing “American atheist social justice bloggers.” Uberfeminist believed Watson and Roth were trying to game Dragon Con by getting free attendance and then using their own panels to plug their table and merchandise:

Skepchick may say

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So Ariel Castro, the guy who kidnapped and enslaved three women, killed himself in his prison cell. (Or he was murdered and the authorities are just saying he killed himself. Who knows, but let’s go with the official story for now.)

Some moments from his life:

In court:

Castro appeared to blame the victims and accused them of lying about their treatment. He went on to say that none of the women was a virgin when he abducted them, that they wanted sex and there was “harmony” in the “happy household.”

Mm. That’s why there were chains; that’s why the windows were boarded up; that’s why Amanda Berry clawed the front door partly open and screamed for help.

At … Read the rest

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The Dawkins Foundation has been sprucing up its website lately, I gather. It has a projects page, with two sub pages, one of which is Our Resources Include You. It’s about team-building, I guess, and it starts with You, meaning all us readers, then it goes on to Dawkins and co.

Richard Dawkins, DSc, FRS: One of the most respected scientists in the world and the biggest draw in secularism, Richard Dawkins always generates impressive crowds when visiting North America. On his Fall 2011 tour he drew an enthusiastic crowd of 2300 at Eastern Kentucky University. This is a movement, and Richard Dawkins is the catalyst that galvanizes it. 

Um…that’s a sprucing up too far, that last sentence is. … Read the rest

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Malala Yousafzai opened the new Birmingham Library today.

How’s that for the best possible revenge? It’s not revenge at all, it’s just surviving and flourishing and being an inspiration to people who need that very thing, when ignorant warped bullies wanted her dead.

As part of the opening ceremony, Malala placed her copy of The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho in the library – the last book to go on the shelves. She has been given membership to access the archive.

Addressing the public, Malala said she was feeling very proud the building had been designed by a woman and the city was now her second home after her “beloved Pakistan”.

She said books were weapons to beat terrorism and

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