More support for Fran Cowling and indignation with Peter Tatchell. Also – coincidentally? or not? – more bad writing. This time it’s an open letter to Peter by a guy called Chris Hubley. He points out that there have been a lot of articles on the subject of Cowling v Tatchell.

However what is missing from all this is that you were never actually under attack. Fran isn’t a well known figure beyond their own circles, and they weren’t even making these comments publicly – it all happened in private emails between them and the organisers of the event. They had been invited to speak alongside you, and they responded that they didn’t want to.

Wait, I’m lost already. Who? … Read the rest

The BBC has had to tell some of its people they can’t do any more filming unless/until they can show they’ve been to Don’t Fake Your Footage school. How embarrassing.

Staff at the BBC’s flagship Natural History Unit will be banned from programme-making until they have been sent on a tough new anti-fakery course, after two of the division’s shows were found to have contained serious breaches of the corporation’s editorial guidelines.

The editorial guidelines that go “First, fake no footage.”

The BBC Trust, the broadcaster’s governing body, ruled yesterday that Patagonia: Earth’s Secret Paradise, a BBC Two series shown last year, misled viewers by passing off composite footage of different volcanic eruptions as a single event.

Well…if it’s … Read the rest

So tilted.

… Read the rest

There exists a statement of solidarity with Fran Cowling. It’s not clear who wrote it or posted it or is hosting it – it’s just some words floating in cyberspace. It purports to be on a blog called Solidarity for Students with a subhead (or section) called Student Solidarity, but when you click on either one, it just takes you to the page you’re already on. A bit Alice Through the Looking-glass, that.

So these floating words.

We stand in solidarity with NUS LGBT+ Officer Fran Cowling and support their right to choose who they share a platform with according to their own values and beliefs. We believe fundamentally in the right to freedom of speech and association but

A friend had to go the the ER for sudden crippling back pain. They refused to give my friend adequate pain relief. They have this helpful sign telling people what they can’t have:

… Read the rest

The Journal.ie draws our attention to a Der Stürmer-level magazine cover from Poland:

A right-wing Polish magazine cover emblazoned with the headline “The Islamic rape of Europe” triggered a storm of criticism on social media, with some comments comparing it to World War II fascist propaganda.

The cover of the news weekly “w Sieci” (In the net) showed a posed photo of a blue-eyed blonde woman, wrapped in an EU flag, looking terrified as she is groped by hairy-armed men.

Hairy-armed men whose skin is a lot browner than hers.

Bad, bad stuff. Don’t do that.… Read the rest

The Jerusalem Post shares one of IS’s recent activities.

According to Kurdish media reports, the jihadist group that has captured wide swaths of Syria and Iraq beheaded a 15-year-old boy in Mosul for the crime of listening to Western pop music.

Reports cite officials in the northern Iraqi city as saying that the boy, Ayham Hussein, was discovered by ISIS henchman as he was listening to a portable compact disc player.

Hussein was detained by ISIS operatives as he sat inside a shop owned by his father in an open-air market in western Mosul. The boy was beaten and tried in a local sharia court, which sentenced him to be executed.

For listening to pop music.

They chopped his … Read the rest

A tweet from the past:

innocent drinks ‏@innocent 14 hours ago
When we got sent some pens designed especially for women.

The last one makes me laugh a lot.… Read the rest

Susan Jacoby was on Fresh Air yesterday. She’s written a new book about the history of religious conversion. It was an interesting conversation.

GROSS: Islam and Christianity have long histories of conversion. Judaism doesn’t. It’s a religion where you’re born into it. And conversion to Judaism, I think it’s really only in modern times that that’s even been accepted, and I’m not sure it’s still accepted by all branches of Judaism.

JACOBY: No, Terry. I’m going to correct you on that. People think that, that conversion to Judaism is just a modern phenomenon. But there was an era in the late Roman Empire Judaism was not a proselytizing religion. It didn’t go out looking for converts, but it accepted

Tendance Coatesy shares a couple of reports:

Jenny Sterne at the Mancunion:

Allegations have come to light that Nick Lowles, director of HOPE Not Hate, has, according to a post on his Facebook page, been “no-platformed” by the NUS Black Students’ Campaign due to their belief that he holds “Islamophobic” views.

Hope not Hate, founded in 2004 after the BNP started to win substantial votes and local councillors, seeks to “challenge and defeat the politics of hate and extremism within local communities”, and Lowles was due to speak on an anti-racism platform. In Lowles’ Twitter bio he describes himself as “anti-fascist with HOPE not hate” and a “staunch supporter of the Kurdish fight against ISIS”.

In his Facebook

My friend Nouri Karim has just published his translation of The God Delusion into Kurdish. He published a translation of Does God Hate Women? in 2012.

He sent me some photos on the occasion.

Grattis, Karim!… Read the rest

In a surprise move, Obama said at a press conference today that he intended to do his job as the Constitution spelled it out. Pundits who had expected him to say “Ok then let’s just wait until next year” were left wondering what signs they had missed.

President Obama on Tuesday challenged Republicans to offer any plausible rationale for refusing to consider a Supreme Court candidate to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died last weekend, and he pledged to nominate someone with an “outstanding legal mind” who cares about democracy and the rule of law.

That’s just shockingly irresponsible and inflammatory.

“The Constitution is pretty clear about what is supposed to happen now,” Mr. Obama said during a news conference

Bill Cosby gets a nope.

Bill Cosby’s criminal sexual-assault case appears to be headed toward an evidence hearing after a judge denied his latest effort to throw the charges out.

In a ruling Tuesday, the judge who refused to dismiss the case earlier this month denied Cosby’s appeal of that decision.

The 78-year-old TV star is accused of drugging and violating an ex-Temple University employee at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004 and could get 10 years in prison if convicted. The defense insists Cosby had a promise from a previous district attorney that he would never be charged over the 2004 encounter.

Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neill, though, found the evidence of such an agreement lacking after hearing

Good.

Oregon Public Broadcasting:

A federal judge in Portland denied Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy bail at a hearing Tuesday.

Not very surprising, is it. The guy doesn’t even recognize the jurisdiction, so how could he possibly not be a flight risk? He’s a fella who considers himself entitled to resist law enforcement with guns, so how could it be safe to let him out on bail?

Magistrate Judge Janice Stewart agreed with prosecutors that Bundy posed a flight risk and a danger to the community, and should be held in jail while awaiting trial.

If he’s not, nobody is.

Before Bundy’s Tuesday hearing, a family member said he isn’t dangerous or a criminal and should have been released from