Rupert Myers is very polite and repentant about writing such a nasty and untruthful article in the Telegraph about how Kate Smurthwaite is milking the last minute cancellation of her gig for publicity and besides nobody wanted to see her show anyway.

Hahahaha I’m kidding, no he’s not, he’s rude and dismissive.

Rupert Myers ‏@RupertMyers 6 hours ago
@Cruella1 I wish you the best of luck: my point is that this wasn’t a free speech / no platform situation.

Kate Smurthwaite ‏@Cruella1 6 hours ago
@RupertMyers and you felt the need to accept their point that sales were low without checking the actual facts. You don’t see how that…
…might damage my reputation? Just as well I don’t make

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Guest post by Misty Griffin

One of the only photos taken of the Author during her teenage years. Here she is seventeen years old.

“People would smile reverently as we walked by, never did they suspect the horrific sexual, physical and mental torture that my sister and I suffered on a daily basis. To the outside world we were the epitome of chasteness, sobriety and down to earth values. In reality my life was a living nightmare  straight from the depths of hell.”
                                                  – Misty Griffin

If you are a rape victim among the Amish it is in every case a very harsh and scary reality. You have no allies, no one to talk to about what happened and no … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

The BBC reports on a “no Jews need apply” ad in France:

An advert for a graphic design job in France has been withdrawn after it said the candidate should “if possible not be a Jew”.

Racial discrimination is illegal in France and anti-racism group SOS Racisme says it is taking legal action.

The ad was posted on Monday by Paris-based NSL Studio on jobs site Graphic-Jobs.com.

NSL Studio has apologised for the ad but offered various explanations as to why it contained the offending clause.

First they said long hours, might conflict. Then they said hacked. So those are two totally conflicting reasons. The first is “we had a good, non-anti-Semitic, pragmatic reason.” The second is “we never.” The … Read the rest

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A novel that Harper Lee wrote in the mid-50s, before To Kill a Mockingbird, is going to be published next summer. The Guardian reports that there is much excitement.

UK and Commonwealth rights to the book were acquired by Penguin Random House. The publisher’s announcement on Tuesday was accompanied by a new photo of Lee, climbing out of a car and smiling. The news has been kept secret from all but a handful of staff at the publisher, and publicity director Charlotte Bush said that when it was revealed this afternoon, a series of screams went up around the office.

Well you know how people in publishing are. They’re screamers.

At Foyles booksellers in London, Jonathan Ruppin described

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Mona Eltahawy reports on the harassment and persecution of atheists in Egypt.

Because atheism itself is not illegal in Egypt, charges are laid under laws against blasphemy or contempt for religion. In 2012, a 27-year-old blogger, Alber Saber, received a three-year sentence on charges of blasphemy for creating a web page called “Egyptian Atheists.” In 2013, the writer and human rights activist Karam Saber (no relation) was convicted of defaming religion in his short story collection “Where Is God?”

Cool trick. No law against atheism – but you can’t defame religion!

It is no surprise that Mr. Banna’s conviction occurred on the watch of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the former army general who led the ouster of Mohamed Morsi of

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Maajid Nawaz has started a video series – short video, which I applaud. Yesterday’s, the third, is about Raif and Waleed. It’s only a minute and a half.

The punchline is a doozy.

If we are more offended by mere cartoons than a man being flogged in public for the charge of blasphemy – if we take more offense to the former over the latter – then we’ve got a fucking problem.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Waleed and Raif are nominated for a Nobel.

… Read the rest

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Look who has joined this sinister group of bloggers – Jamila Bey!

In her inaugural post she tells us an atheist invented Black History Month, which I didn’t know.

Carter G. Woodson, autodidact who graduated with his Ph.D. from Harvard, was a leading thinker who came up with the idea of Negro History Month in 1926.  He hoped, (as does this writer) that the need for the commemoration would someday become obsolete.

Woodson was a staunch critic of religious institutions and wrote that they were oppressive to Blacks.  Just as he believed that the accomplishments and the global influence of Black people were unreported or at best under represented, the influence of freethinking and atheist people, particularly concerning American history,

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Here is the item I was looking for yesterday from a doctor explaining why there can’t be unvaccinated children in his waiting room.

Mike Ginsberg

In my practice you will vaccinate and you will vaccinate on time. You will not get your own “spaced-out” schedule that increases your child’s risk of illness or adverse event. I will not have measles-shedding children sitting in my waiting room. I will answer all your questions about vaccine and present you with facts, but if you will not vaccinate then you will leave my practice. I will file a CPS report (not that they will do anything) for medical neglect, too.

I have patients who are premature infants with weak lungs and

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

… Read the rest

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Originally a comment by iknklast on Anxious love.

Where I live, they not only bully you if you don’t like football, but they are currently bullying a woman who moved here from somewhere else (Michigan), didn’t care about football, and had no desire to root for Michigan, but now because of the abuse (and yes, it is abuse!) is rooting for her football team hard and strong. Everyone acts like she has done something evil by maintaining a lifetime loyalty to where she grew up instead of being a convert to “our” state team (who will remain unnamed for now). To live and work in this state is to be required to bow down to the dominant football culture.… Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

I was going to mumble about Jonathan Chait’s much-discussed lament about “political correctness” but then I got caught up in my own laments about football mania. Now that I’ve got most of that off my chest, I want to say a little about what I think is both banal and wrong about Chait’s piece.

Here’s one banal and wrong place.

The recent mass murder of the staff members of Charlie Hebdo in Paris was met with immediate and unreserved fury and grief across the full range of the American political system. But while outrage at the violent act briefly united our generally quarrelsome political culture, the quarreling quickly resumed over deeper fissures. Were the slain satirists martyrs at the

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Some US doctors are dropping patients who refuse to get their children vaccinated. Good.

With California gripped by a measles outbreak, Dr. Charles Goodman posted a clear notice in his waiting room and on Facebook: His practice will no longer see children whose parents won’t get them vaccinated.

“Parents who choose not to give measles shots, they’re not just putting their kids at risk, but they’re also putting other kids at risk — especially kids in my waiting room,” the Los Angeles pediatrician said.

You know…kids who are there because they are ill, and don’t need to be exposed to measles or mumps on top of that.

The American Academy of Pediatrics says doctors should bring up the

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While we’re kvetching about football…I wrote a column for the previous-to-current Free Inquiry about my dislike of the sport and its cult. (US football this is, not association football aka soccer.)

What’s so annoying about it is the crackpot assumption that everyone is wildly excited about football when after all sport is only one branch of human activity, and football is only one branch of sport. I, for one, like the other football, a.k.a. soccer, and then there is lacrosse, jai alai, bowls, darts, bocce. . . . There are many sports, and I dislike the assumption that in America we’re all supposed to share the enthusiasm for American football. I dislike the social bullying aspect of it, just as

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

A Kate Smurthwaite gig tomorrow at Goldsmiths College –

Kate Smurthwaite will be performing her stand up show Leftie Cockwomble for all to enjoy! The show is about free speech, language and the media with some very interesting views on the Daily Mail and Frankie Boyle…
Doors 7pm for 8pm start!

The show is FREE for Goldsmiths Comedy Society members and the Feminist Society*

£4 OTD for general public

*This is only valid if you have paid your membership and you will be asked for your student number OTD

Monday 02 February 2015

7pm – 11pm

Oh wait. It’s off.

What? Why??

Because of bullshit, that’s why. Kate posted the “explanation” publicly on Facebook.

Comedian Kate Smurthwaite has had

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More celebration of Super Bowl Day by attacking the sacred institution of Murkan Football. Josh Spokes is on a tear on the subject, thanks to people treating football fandom as some sort of marginalized minority identity. Friends are making informative comments on his on-a-tear posts, and I sought and got permission to quote a couple.

Hope Stansfield:

Here’s the thing: I grew up in a rural and impoverished town in the Midwest. Football was a cultural juggernaut. It was a tool the privileged and powerful in that town used to demonstrate and exact their dominance, while also paying lip service to the idea that they weren’t viciously racist and bigoted – after all, if you could play football and not

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)