This is unsurprising, but it makes me sick. An example of women being deliberately deleted from a cultural product on the grounds that boys hate girls.

According to an industry insider, the dearth of Rey merchandise for The Force Awakens was no accident — it was an intentional decision.

The inside source shared their story with Michael Boehm at Sweatpants and Coffee, speaking on the condition of anonymity…

The source alleges that, during toy pitches held last January for executives, “initial versions of many of the products presented to Lucasfilm featured Rey prominently.” But under the direction of the executives, Rey’s presence was deliberately minimized in the planned merchandise.

“One or more individuals raised concerns about the presence of

CFI sent out a press release today:

Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science to Merge with Center for Inquiry

The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science and the Center for Inquiry, two of the world’s most respected freethought institutions, have announced their intent to merge. The new organization, which will be the largest secularist organization in the United States, will bear the name of the Center for Inquiry (CFI), with the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science (RDFRS) becoming a division of CFI.

Robyn Blumner, currently president & CEO of RDFRS, will become CEO of the combined entity on January 25. Ronald A. Lindsay, currently president & CEO of CFI, will retain the title of president until

A pretty story from Inside Higher Ed:

Is there a backlash to the backlash against sexual harassment in astronomy? A group calling itself the Astronomy Underground sent an open letter to leaders of the American Astronomical Society on Tuesday alleging inappropriate, vigilante-style attempts to root out harassers in the discipline.

“We ask [the American Astronomical Society] Council and the [society’s Astronomy Education Board] to publicly explain how these actions have been allowed to occur for so long, and with what license [the society] has acted to investigate its members, damaging their careers, their personal lives and the health of the society in the process,” reads the letter.

The Astronomy Underground alleges that the society is somehow involved in such

In further news from Pakistan…

After a Pakistani boy cut off his own hand following a public accusation of blasphemy, BBC Urdu’s Iram Abbasi travelled to his village in Punjab province to find out what happened. She is the first international broadcaster to speak to him. Some readers may find the details that follow disturbing.

“Why should I feel any pain or trouble in cutting off the hand that was raised against the Holy Prophet?”

Those are the words of 15-year-old Qaiser (not his real name) who chopped off his right hand just a few days ago believing he had committed blasphemy.

Why? Because he was at a birthday party for the prophet at his local mosque, and a … Read the rest

Gulalai Ismail on Facebook:

Looking at this young guy Sajjad Anjum who lost his life in today’s terrorist attack in Bacha Khan University, I wonder how come our media and state institutes were calling it “a successful operation” and “enemy couldn’t achieve its objectives”. 20 other such lives were lost today, and 20 isn’t just a figure. It’s 20 lives like him, it’s 20 families. They didn’t deserve to die at this young age.

Sajjad Anjum

The BBC:

Security forces have ended a gun and bomb attack on a university in north-west Pakistan in which 19 people were killed and 17 injured.

Four suspected attackers also died in a battle that lasted nearly three hours at Bacha Khan University in Charsadda.

One Pakistani Taliban commander said the group had carried out the assault, but its main spokesman denied this.

Someone should claim it. If people don’t know who did it, how can they submit to the demands?

One student told television reporters he was in class when he heard gunshots: “We saw three terrorists shouting, ‘God is great!’ and rushing towards the stairs of our department.

“One student jumped out of the classroom through the

…what??

Pink News:

A proposal to add mothers’ names to marriage certificates has been rejected for excluding gay couples.

The proposal had intended to include mothers’ names on marriage certificates, in a bid to “reflect modern Britain”.

The certificates currently only ask for the name of each spouse’s father. The new proposals are intended to include mothers on equal footing to fathers.

However the Home Office has rejected the plans, saying it could not agree to them as assuming that couples have opposite-sex parents is exclusionary.

So…it’s fine to name only fathers, but it’s impermissible to mention mothers. Well what if the parents are a lesbian couple?

Then you put the father’s name, just as it is now. Everybody … Read the rest

Damn it to hell.

Leila Alaoui, a French-Moroccan photographer whose hauntingly beautiful photographs explored themes of migration, cultural identity and displacement, died on Monday night from injuries sustained during a terrorist attack in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. She was 33.

The French culture minister, Fleur Pellerin, confirmed her death on Twitter.

Ms. Alaoui, whose work has been displayed around the world, was described as one of the most promising photographers of her generation by Jean-Luc Monterosso, director of the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris.

God-lovers who hate humans destroy as many good people and things as they can reach.

The North African affiliate of Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility forthe rampage, which killed at

Many startling figures and percentages here – Christopher Ketcham in The New Republic a year ago on the way cattle ranching is sucking the west dry.

Food production consumes more fresh water than any other activity in the United States. “Within agriculture in the West, the thirstiest commodity is the cow,” says George Wuerthner, an ecologist at the Foundation for Deep Ecology, who has studied the livestock industry. Humans drink about a gallon of water a day; cows, upwards of 23 gallons. The alfalfa, hay, and pasturage raised to feed livestock in California account for approximately half of the water used in the state, with alfalfa representing the highest-acreage crop…90 percent of Nevada’s cropland is dedicated to raising hay.

An Oregon citizen writes a letter to the Oregonian rebuking its recent headline on the illegal seizure of Malheur.

The Oregonian’s A1 headline on Sunday, Jan. 17, “Effort to free federal lands,” is inaccurate and irresponsible. The article that follows it is a mere mouthpiece for the scofflaws illegally occupying public buildings and land, repeating their lies and distortions of history and law.

Ammon Bundy and his bullyboys aren’t trying to free federal lands, but to hold them hostage. I can’t go to the Malheur refuge now, though as a citizen of the United States, I own it and have the freedom of it. That’s what public land is: land that belongs to the public — me, you, every law-abiding

Carole Cadwalladr has a scathing review of The Revenant (as did all three of the guests on Saturday Review yesterday). It sounds absolutely rebarbative.

It’s a tale of “revenge, retribution and primal violence”, according to theGuardian’s Peter Bradshaw, “as thrilling and painful as a sheet of ice held to the skin”. This is praise, by the way. It’s “unthinkingly, aggressively masculine,” saysGQ. That’s praise too.

The film is based on a true story of the American frontier from 1823 and I’ll summarise the plot for you: man seeks revenge, man gets revenge. That’s it, basically, for two and a half hours, though there is a brief reprieve when you get to

The armed but white thieves trespassing at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge are begging to be arrested and evicted, and law enforcement is still standing around daydreaming.

The militiamen occupying a wildlife refuge in eastern Oregon have adopted increasingly bold and risky tactics in their protest against the federal government, raising questions about how long law enforcement officials can allow the standoff to continue.

Why do law enforcement officials want to allow the standoff to continue? Why are they asking how long they can keep doing that, instead of not doing that? If those people were not white, we know damn well they wouldn’t be sipping their 10th cup of coffee instead of arresting the thieving gun-having criminals.

Now entering

Oyyy, it’s not just Germany. It’s Sweden too.

Sweden’s prime minister has condemned a “double betrayal” of women after allegations that police covered up sexual harassment by recent immigrants at a music festival in Stockholm. Meanwhile, reports have emerged of attacks on women in Malmö on New Year’s Eve.

Groups of refugees molested concertgoers at We Are Stockholm, Europe’s largest youth festival, in the summer of 2014, according to internal police memos obtained by Dagens Nyheter, a daily newspaper.

“These are so-called refugee youths, specifically from Afghanistan. Several of the gang were arrested for sexual molestation,” one police memo said.

But the official police report on the festival didn’t mention the assaults or harassment. No one was prosecuted.… Read the rest

Here’s how to combat hatred – call people cunts. No hatred there, no indeed.

This is Donald.

Donald has made a career out of hating other people.

Donald is a hoofwanking bunglecunt.

Don’t be like Donald.