Hey guess what, we’ve passed the carbon tipping point. Permanently.

It’s a banner week for the end of the world, because we’ve officially pushed atmospheric carbon levels past their dreaded 400 parts per million. Permanently.

According to a blog post last Friday from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, “it already seems safe to conclude that we won’t be seeing a monthly value below 400 ppm this year—or ever again for the indefinite future.” Their findings are based on weekly observations of carbon dioxide at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory, where climate scientists have been measuring CO2 levels since 1958.

What’s so terrifying about this number? For several years now, scientists have been warning us that if atmospheric carbon were

Russia. Trump’s good friend Russia; Russia Russia Russia, as he so eloquently put it in the debate. Russia shot down that plane, just as everyone (except Russia) said.

International prosecutors say Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was downed over eastern Ukraine in 2014 by a Buk missile that had come from Russia.

They also narrowed down the area it was fired from to a field in territory controlled by Russian-backed rebels.

All 298 people on board the Boeing 777 died when it broke apart in mid-air flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

Russia says it cannot accept the findings as the final truth, saying no Russian weapons were taken to Ukraine.

Yes and where is Obama’s birth certificate and Clinton’s … Read the rest

From the You just can’t win files, or is it the Balance at all costs files, or the Let’s not get too smartyboots around here files, or the Women who know stuff aren’t feminine files, or the We have to say something bad about her files.

Meet the Press on Twitter:

.@chucktodd: #debatenight exposed Trump's lack of preparation, but Clinton seemed over-prepared at times.

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) September 27, 2016

#debatenight exposed Trump’s lack of preparation, but Clinton seemed over-prepared at times.

Over-prepared. She’s running for a huge complicated job with a lot of moving parts, and she seemed “over-prepared.” What would that even be?… Read the rest

Can I watch this thing? I don’t know. It will be torture.

Here’s one place to watch it: ABC on Facebook Live.

If we don’t see each other again…it was a good ride.… Read the rest

Maajid Nawaz on Facebook:

Protecting your right to do something, doesn’t mean I think you’re right to do it. Don’t ban the hijab, but don’t exoticise or glamourise it either. The#RegressiveLeft‘s pandering to conservative Islam has become so entrenched that Playboy magazine just featured a hijabi model, unironically billed as a symbol of an ‘independent woman’, a ‘Renegade’.

Wearing the hijab does not make a woman a symbol of an independent woman. On the contrary, it makes her a symbol of a dependent, submissive, obedient woman, owned by men and dressed according to the dictates of clerical men.

 … Read the rest

God damn. Sometimes you just have to wonder…Do they have blackouts between words, or what? What can explain a grotesque juxtaposition like this in an article by Phil Torres asking if new atheism is irrelevant?

To this day — 12 years after the movement was inaugurated by Sam Harris’ compelling book The End of Faith — new atheism remains dominated by white men, even though women comprise 44 percent of the “religiously unaffiliated” demographic in the contemporary United States.

Despite these shortcomings, I would argue that new atheism — led by luminaries such as Sam Harris, Michael Shermer, Jerry Coyne, Richard Dawkins, and Peter Boghossian — is not only more important today than 12 years ago, but that it could

Another item for blasphemy week – except of course it’s blasphemy week every minute, every second.

A self-proclaimed atheist youth was arrested in Indian city of Kolkata for ‘hurting religious feelings’ after he re-posted a critique of Islam on Facebook.

Tarak Biswas, 32, reportedly routinely criticised several religions on the social media, evoking strong reactions and sparking debate. The youth, however, was held after he re-posted the material relating to Islam from another website.

People ought to be free to criticize religion. Religion claims huge power over people, so we have to be able to dissent from it. But of course part of the huge power religion claims over us is the power to prevent us from dissenting from it, … Read the rest

The BBC:

A petition signed by more than 14,000 Saudi women calling for an end to the country’s male guardianship system is being handed to the government.

Women must have the consent of a male guardian to travel abroad, and often need permission to work or study.

Support for the first large-scale campaign on the issue grew online in response to a trending Twitter hashtag.

I’m sure the government will be very conscientious about exactly how it cuts the petition into strips.

Many workplaces and universities also demand a guardian’s consent for female employees and students, although it is not legally required.

Renting a flat, undergoing hospital treatment or filing a legal claim often also require a male guardian’s

Seen on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/780158557786210304

Newt Gingrich: Clinton is a fox who knows many things you can fact check. Trump is a hedgehog who knows one very big thing: We need change

Popehat: A former professor of history, reduced to sneering at knowledge of facts. How dignified.

Furthermore, this “one big thing: we need change” item – come on. We always “need change.” There are always countless things large and small that need alteration, so saying that is empty. Of course we need change; that’s not one big thing, it’s just a pointless truism.… Read the rest