Nov 28th, 2013 10:56 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Another thing to have GMO-panic about – an apple that doesn’t turn brown when it’s cut.
In test fields in New York and Washington state stand about 100 trees bearing the Canadian-designed Holy Grail of fruit science: an apple that cannot brown.
…
But as the Arctic Apple wends its way toward final approval in both the United States and Canada, genetic-engineering alarmists and entrenched apple interests alike are increasingly framing the new fruit as a profane creation of perverted science.
Because if god had meant apples to stay pale when sliced then god would have made them that way. On the other hand it’s the opposite with penises – god doesn’t like the way god made them, so humans … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, GMO
Nov 28th, 2013 10:33 am |
By Ophelia Benson
The National Post gives more detail on the Israeli woman fined by a rabbinical court for refusing to allow her infant son to be circumcised.
The mother, whose name was given only as Elinor, said her son had been born with a medical problem that prevented him undergoing ritual circumcision on the eighth day after birth, as is customary in Jewish law.
“As time went on, I started reading about what actually happens in circumcision, and I realised that I couldn’t do that to my son.
“He’s perfect just as he is,” Haaretz newspaper quoted her as saying. In their ruling, the three rabbis wrote: “Circumcision is a standard surgical procedure that is performed on every Jewish baby boy, so
…
Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: Circumcision, FTB
Nov 27th, 2013 3:40 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Yes, that New Jersey server may have faked the note and the refusal to tip, many news outlets are reporting. Salon reported this morning:
…earlier this week, Morales’ story took a twist — when the family she said stiffed her contacted NBC News to dispute her claim. The husband and wife produced their copy of the receipt, which showed an $18 tip, and what they say is their Visa statement, which likewise reflects the larger total. They also say the alleged snarking on Morales’ appearance went down differently – they say they’d been told their server would be “Dan,” and when Morales appeared, they said, “Whoa, you’re not Dan.” The husband told NBC he didn’t even vote for Chris
…
Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: Corrections, FTB
Nov 27th, 2013 3:06 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
The Los Angeles Times spots an opportunity to bash atheists, and seizes it with both paws.
A New Jersey-based atheist organization is castigating the work of Pope Francis and others who respond to natural disasters with prayer, Bibles and rosaries.
That’s a remarkably snotty way to describe American Atheists. Why not just say American Atheists? What’s with the “New Jersey-based”? Are we supposed to think it’s just a pathetic little local startup that will be gone in a few minutes? One of many fly-bitten atheist organizations based in somebody’s borrowed garage?
Anyway. To the substance, such as it is.
American Atheists announced Monday that it was unveiling digital billboards in the central part of that state that carry just such
…
Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB
Nov 27th, 2013 12:20 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
The Universities UK blog continues to get strongly critical comments on Nicola Dandridge’s post defending its position on gender segregation. It also continues not to reply to any of them.
The latest is by Chris Moos, summing up the state of play.
43 comments, each and every one of them negative. And still no response from UUK.. Who is charge of PR again? or is everyone too busy writing reports that figure out how to [defend?] other kinds of segregation practices?
There’s also one from a University of Manchester physicist.
UUK: Perhaps you might like to take a look at the top of this page where you say:
“We are the representative organisation for the UK’s universities”
No
…
Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, Gender segregation, Universities UK
Nov 27th, 2013 11:43 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Figures of speech are interesting. Sometimes they illuminate, sometimes they amuse, and sometimes they lead us astray. Far far astray – up the creek, down the steep mountainside, into the brambles.
If you do a bad thing, and you never take it back or apologize for it, and it does spreading harm for a period of years…and then someone asks you about it, the correct answer is not “that’s water under the bridge.” It’s not water under the bridge. There are reasons for that.
“Water under the bridge” is the right expression for something that’s over. It’s not the right expression for something that did damage that was never repaired; it’s even less the right expression for something that did … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB
Nov 27th, 2013 11:24 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Ok this is funny. Edwina Rogers is the new Executive Director of the RDF, and the RDF interviewed her for its Secular VIP of Week. So who made that decision? Was it the exec – oh wait. Couldn’t have been.
What if you allied the biggest secular groups in the United States and placed their political goals in the hands of someone who’s worked in the White House? And again in the White House, and for four US senators? This week we interview our very own Edwina Rogers, Executive Director of the Richard Dawkins Foundation, in her other role as head of the Secular Coalition for America.
Good idea! Then next week you can interview Richard Dawkins in his … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB
Nov 26th, 2013 6:08 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Simon Davis wrote a great article on the main Greek opposition party’s bad move in attempting to block legislation that would bring down generic drug prices, and using alarmist anti-science rhetoric to do it.
The main reason why their handling of this issue is so misguided is because they are relying on reckless anti-science alarmism. Leading the charge is SYRIZA party leader Alexis Tsipras, whose statements today about “cheap and dubious [generic] drugs” have absolutely no demonstrable scientific basis.
In addition, there is no logical basis nor has anyone articulated any convincing rationale about how SYRIZA’s position is even remotely related to their stated left-wing party principles. The proposed legislation sets a price ceiling of 50% of the innovator drug
…
Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, Simon Davis
Nov 26th, 2013 5:20 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Jeez, even here in Seattle. Although this time it’s about women-only (and sometimes also men-only) times at municipal swimming pools. That’s a bit of a special case, in a way, since it requires being sparsely dressed. But…it’s also the thin end of the slippery nose under the tent. Wait, that’s not quite right…
Earlier this month, a resident filed a gender-discrimination complaint with the state Human Rights Commission (HRC), challenging not the women’s swim time at the Tukwila pool but the men-only component, after she said she was unable to accompany and supervise her 11-year-old son there.
Last Thursday, the HRC closed the complaint, saying that since the pool offers swim times for both women and men, no gender discrimination
…
Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, Gender segregation
Nov 26th, 2013 4:49 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
This is an interesting example, from Germany in January 2012.
A German man has created a new website to arrange shared car trips with a twist – it’s targeted toward Muslims, and drivers can only offer transport to members of the same sex.
Called Muslimtaxi.de, the site is based on the same principle as other popular websites like mitfahrgelegenheit.de , which lets cost-conscious Germans arrange shared car rides.
Those interested in offering rides specify their gender, asking price and how many passengers they can accommodate. Potential passengers contact the driver directly.
…
In operation since late last year, the website has attracted its share of criticism. People have accused Reid of trying to create a parallel society and
…
Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, Gender segregation
Nov 26th, 2013 1:26 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
I thought I couldn’t hate popes and their bullshit any more than I already did, but pope Frank really knows how to push the right buttons. He did a “homily” the other day shitting all over curiosity and saying it’s the opposite of god. (He’s right, but for the wrong reasons. Or for the right reasons, but he doesn’t weigh them correctly.) It’s truly disgusting.
The spirit of curiosity generates confusion and distances a person from the Spirit of wisdom, which brings peace, said Pope Francis in his homily during Thursday morning Mass at Casa Santa Marta.
The hell with peace (of that kind). We get that when we’re dead; while we’re alive we should make the most of it.… Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB
Nov 26th, 2013 12:50 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Several people have informed me that I was completely wrong about selfies, and since they’re all people whose judgment I respect and I wasn’t all that committed to my (admittedly hasty) view anyway, I’ve decided what the hell, they’re right. There was one sentence in the Jezebel article that did neatly sum up a certain genre of selfie that I don’t like – or rather, that I think is demeaning. But meh; that’s not very high up on the list of things to object to, and anyway it’s only one genre, and I wouldn’t want to be without selfies of people with their dogs draped over their shoulder or their cats leering into the lens.
As rorschach pointed out… Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, Selfies
Nov 26th, 2013 11:50 am |
By Ophelia Benson
What??
How is this even possible?
AlJazeera reports:
A religious court in Israel has fined a woman $140 each day that her one-year-old son remains uncircumcised. The Rabbinical Court in Jerusalem has reportedly rejected an appeal from the woman, who is currently going through a divorce and whose husband insists the procedure be carried out.
Rabbinical courts in Israel have jurisdiction in Jewish religious matters, including marriage and divorce. However, the woman’s lawyer reportedly argued that the court does not have the authority to demand the circumcision. According to +972 Magazine, there is no legal requirement for parents to have their sons circumcised.
What??
A religious court can require people to mutilate their infant’s genitals and fine them … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB
Nov 26th, 2013 11:13 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Polly Toynbee also objects to UUK’s separate-but-equal policy.
Separate but equal; where have we heard that before? Apartheid South Africa is no metaphor for anything else, but women of my generation and all those before were told over and over again that the sexes are different “but equal”, as an excuse for excluding them from places they didn’t belong: they should be doing “separate but equal” in the kitchen, bedroom and nursery. Whatever is segregated by diktat is rarely equal.
And not just our generation and older, but younger generations too; women are still told that. That is still official Vatican dogma – women are equal but “complementary” – women are equal but different, and they must not try … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, Gender segregation, Polly Toynbee, Universities UK
Nov 25th, 2013 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Segregation perpetuates discriminatory social norms and practices, shaping male attitudes about women and restricting the decisions and choices of women.… Read the rest
Posted in Latest News
Nov 25th, 2013 8:48 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
At the New Humanist, Rory Fenton says no thank you.
It is astounding how quickly we forget or wilfully ignore that human rights are there to protect people – not beliefs. At the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies, of which I’m president, we increasingly see this confused notion of rights being applied on UK campuses. Whether it’s our student groups intimidated for “blasphemy”, as at LSE and Reading, or religious societies refusing unmarried women permission to speak, as at Bristol, this trumping of individual rights by the supposed rights of “beliefs” is increasingly common.
…
…nestled in the report was a bizarre and backward recommendation; universities should be willing to enforce sex segregation between male
…
Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, Gender segregation, Universities UK
Nov 25th, 2013 8:33 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
The BHA condemns Universities UK’s guidelines on gender segregation.
BHA Head of Public Affairs Pavan Dhaliwal commented that ‘Universities are secular institutions, not places of worship, and sex segregation should have no place in secular spaces in which we expect to find equality between men and women. It would be completely unacceptable if a visiting speaker tried to segregate an audience along racial lines, so sex segregation should be equally unacceptable. Universities UK have characterised this as a freedom of speech issue, but this is misleading. A visiting speaker’s right to freedom of speech entitles them to express their political and religious views, but not to impose these views on the audience.’
Damn right. If it’s obviously unacceptable on … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, Gender segregation, Universities UK
Nov 25th, 2013 3:35 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Thurgood Marshall arguing Brown v Board of Education before the Supreme Court in 1953.
I got the feeling on hearing the discussion yesterday that when you put a white child in a school with a whole lot of colored children, the child would fall apart or something. Everybody knows that is not true. Those same kids in Virginia and South Carolina – and I have seen them do it – they play in the streets together, they play on their farms together, they go down the road together, they separate to go to school, they come out of school and play ball together. They have to be separated in school. There is some magic to it. You can have them
…
Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, Gender segregation, Separate but equal
