Bob Churchill on Facebook:

Today I went to the European Parliament and told everyone about people persecuted for “apostasy”, the rise of radical Islamist pressure groups, and the risk to secular liberties from certain forms of populism, all as documented in the new Online Edition of the Freedom of Thought Report of which I am the editor. And you thought I didn’t know how to have fun.

Freedom of thought: now more than ever.

 … Read the rest

Originally a comment by iknklast on Fox to oversee hen house.

In his autobiography he stressed that individual effort, not government programs, were the key to overcoming poverty

His individual effort? Or his mom’s?

Most of the Republican candidates spent a lot of time pointing out that their parents were poor, hard-working, etc. In other words, someone that was not them sacrificed a lot of effort to send them to school, to push them to succeed, and to get them where they are today.

Some of us had moms who committed huge effort to push us away from school, to push us toward marriage and a dozen kids, to push us to stay barefoot and pregnant. What I wouldn’t … Read the rest

Trump sure has brought them out of the woodwork. Great job, President Pussygrabber!

The latest wisdom from Michael Shermer:

When I think of feminists I think of Inez Milholland, led 1913 march on DC, not today's fainting couchers @CHSommers https://t.co/FXwYh90SJj pic.twitter.com/tPjJgM1yYg

— Michael Shermer (@michaelshermer) December 5, 2016

When I think of feminists I think of Inez Milholland, led 1913 march on DC, not today’s fainting couchers

Well of course he does. She’s pretty, she’s young, she’s on a gleaming white horse, and above all she’s safely in the past. Of course men who hate feminism are down with pretty women on white horses in 1913; what’s not to like?

What a shitty, gratuitous, ignorant thing to say. It … Read the rest

Atheist groups tending more Breitbart all the time.

… Read the rest

Another frightening portent – Trump’s national security advisor is a Jack D Ripper type.

Days after Islamist militants stormed the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012, Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn reached a conclusion that stunned some of his subordinates at the Defense Intelligence Agency: Iran had a role in the attack, he told them.

Now, he added, it was their job to prove it — and, by implication, to show that the White House was wrong about what had led to the attack.

Mr. Flynn, whom President-elect Donald J. Trump has chosen to be his national security adviser, soon took to pushing analysts to find Iran’s hidden hand in the disaster, according to current and

The Washington Post reports:

The Army said Sunday that it will not approve an easement necessary for the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline to cross under Lake Oahe in North Dakota, marking a monumental victory for the Native American tribes and thousands of others who have flocked in recent months to protest the pipeline.

Officials in November had delayed the key decision, saying more discussion was necessary about the proposed crossing, given that it would pass very near the reservation of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, whose leaders have repeatedly expressed fears that a spill could threaten the water supplies of its people.

“Although we have had continuing discussion and exchanges of new information with the Standing Rock Sioux and

The BBC has an annual series called 100 Women.

BBC 100 Women names 100 influential and inspirational women around the world every year. We create documentaries, features and interviews about their lives, giving more space for stories that put women at the centre.

One of this year’s influential and inspirational 100 is a woman who calls herself “a surrendered wife.”

Californian Kathy Murray says she saved her marriage by giving up trying to control her husband. Despite considering herself a feminist, she follows – and now teaches others – the approach of a controversial book called The Surrendered Wife, which tells women to stop nagging their partners and start treating them with more respect.

Gee, thanks, BBC. I’m sure that … Read the rest

Matt Taibibi on that windbag with one idea, Thomas Friedman.

“The folksiness will irk some critics … But criticizing Friedman for humanizing and boiling down big topics is like complaining that Mick Jagger used sex to sell songs: It is what he does well.” –John Micklethwait, review of Thank You for Being Late, in The New York Times

With apologies to Mr. Micklethwait, the hands that typed these lines implying Thomas Friedman is a Mick Jagger of letters should be chopped off and mailed to the singer’s doorstep in penance. Mick Jagger could excite the world in one note, while Thomas Friedman needs 461 pages to say, “Shit happens.”

It is what he does; it is not what he … Read the rest

Awkward. The Kennedy School of Government sponsored a chat session with people from the Clinton and Trump campaigns yesterday, and it was as collegial as you’d expect.

As Trump’s team basked in the glow of its victory and singled out for praise its campaign’s chief executive, Stephen K. Bannon, who was absent, the row of grim-faced Clinton aides who sat opposite them bristled.

Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri condemned Bannon, who previously ran Breitbart, a news site popular with the alt-right, a small movement known for espousing racist views.

“If providing a platform for white supremacists makes me a brilliant tactician, I am proud to have lost,” she said. “I would rather lose than win the way you guys did.”