Phil PlaIt tells us that Voyager 1 has apparently left the solar system. Wo.

The spacecraft Voyager 1, launched on Sep. 5, 1977, has apparently left the solar system.

A new paper has just been released showing that Voyager 1 has definitely breached the edge of the Sun’s heliosphere, the huge region around the solar system dominated by the Sun’s solar wind. This is essentially confirmation of what had already been announced in December 2012, so this isn’t exactly new news, but given the paper has been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication, this makes it official.

Still apparently, but official. I like the inclusion of “apparently” – it nudges us outsiders into grasping that this isn’t like seeing … Read the rest

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Michael DeDora gives us a report by Dr. Elizabeth O’Casey on the EU’s resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Freedom of Religion or Belief.

At the end of last week, the European Union (EU), supported by the South American group, tabled a resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Freedom of Religion or Belief. Now, whilst any resolution that highlights the importance of protecting every individual’s right to freedom of religion or belief is always extremely welcome, what is shamefully inadequate about this resolution is that it expressly excludes any concern regarding discrimination and violence against non-believers.

O’Casey and others tried to get more explicit language about protecting non-believers into the resolution, and … Read the rest

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How lovely, in every sense. A guy bought a house opposite that of the Phelps family, and today he’s painting it Rainbow.

Aaron Jackson, one of the founders of Planting Peace, a multi-pronged charity that has in the past concentrated on rainforest conservation, opening orphanages and deworming programs, bought a house that sits directly across from the church’s compound six months ago. On Tuesday, March 19, he and a team of volunteers are painting it to match the gay pride flag.

The project — which the nonprofit is calling the “Equality House” — is the first in a new campaign Planting Peace plans to wage against the group. Westboro is known for its intimidating tactics of protesting (or threatening to

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Two teenage girls in Ohio have been arrested for threatening the Steubenville rape victim on Twitter and Facebook.

A girl who was raped by two high school football players is being victimized by threats against her on Twitter, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said Tuesday as he demanded an end to such postings.

Oh? He didn’t call her a professional victim or a drama queen? How odd. It’s just Twitter, after all. If she doesn’t like it, she shouldn’t have decided to be a public figure.

Two girls, 15 and 16, were accused of posting the tweets Sunday following the conviction and sentencing of two boys for raping the 16-year-old West Virginia girl after an alcohol-fueled party.

The older girl

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Maureen sent me a selection of videos about Malala’s return to school.

She defies her enemies’ attempt to silence her.

Yes she does.

She wants to learn about politics and the law. She wants to learn how to bring change to this world.… Read the rest

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But here’s a bit of good news for a change -

Malala is back in school.

She has now recovered following treatment at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

She described starting at the city’s Edgbaston High School for Girls as “the most important day” of her life.

She said: “I think it is the happiest moment that I’m going back to school, this is what I dreamed, that all children should be able to go to school because it is their basic right.

“I am so proud to wear the uniform because it proves I am a student and that I am living my life and learning.”

Malala is in year nine and will start her GCSE curriculum next year.

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In the Nation, a sports writer talks about the connection between jock culture and rape culture.

As a sportswriter, there is one part of the Steubenville High School rape trial that has kept rattling in my brain long after the defendants were found guilty. It was a text message sent by one of the now-convicted rapists, team quarterback Trent Mays. Mays had texted a friend that he wasn’t worried about the possibility of rape charges because his football coach, local legend Reno Saccoccia, “took care of it.” In another text, Mays said of Coach Reno, “Like, he was joking about it so I’m not worried.”

In this exchange we see an aspect of the Steubenville case that should resonate

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How bad can it get? Well, I probably can’t even imagine, but I can see part of the way to how bad it can get. It can get as bad as Why don’t we have a Dumb Fucking Whore Registry? The author of that calls herself Judgybitch.

So two of the boys involved in the Steubenville “rape” case were found guilty and will now face imprisonment and a lifetime membership on the Registered List of Sex Offenders. That is a tragedy for the boys, for justice and for the victims of actual rape.  As we go through this case, ask yourself who benefits from this verdict, and why.

Most of the facts in this case seem relatively incontrovertible:  a young

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There’s a funny thing where obsessive people have Rosicrucian-like Ideas about what happened when once long ago a comment they made on my blog ended up on the cutting room floor. They think it’s because Dogmatism or Social Justice Warrior or Skepticism Stabbed in the Back or the Femistasi or The Lindbergh Baby. They obsess; they make wikis; they type and type and type and type; they go on for thousands of words. And all the time it’s much simpler than that.

The comment was fucking boring.

It was long, and detailed, and pedantic, and about a very small thing that couldn’t stand that much length and detail and pedantry, and it was fucking boring.

You know what? Not everybody … Read the rest

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Hotshot starry tv trainers who can make people lose 800 pounds in a week turn out to be peddling quack “weight-loss pills” that are both useless and harmful. How sleazy.

Both trainers have created standalone sites — jillianweightloss.com and bobharpersupplements.com — to sell their supplements. By taking this under-the-radar path with their diet pills, the trainers are using the fame and trust they’ve gained from their time on the Biggest Loser to market weight loss supplements to a consumer base eager for a quick fix that “really works.”

There is little proof that either pill “really works” at all. Michaels has faced four different lawsuits from consumers claiming her supplements either didn’t work or were dangerous. All four

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Hot new idea in Egypt! Allowing citizens’ arrests.

Uh oh. It doesn’t take much slow careful pondering to see the risks in that idea.

Only Islamist political powers, represented by the Freedom and Justice Party and Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya, welcomed the decision as an attempt to curb the security deterioration in the country.

Really? You sure? Not as an attempt to curb the secularism and sluttiness and bareheaded woman-ness in the country? Not as an attempt to curb the blasphemy and Christianity and apostasy in the country?

Yes, Egypt is right off my bucket list. I’d be arrested before the captain turned off the seatbelt sign.… Read the rest

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One of the pseudonymous harassers commenting at Michael Nugent’s blog is now just plain posting libel about me. It’s “Commander Tuvok”  – who will never have to face any consequences of his penchant for posting libel about people, because he is pseudonymous.

Meanwhile, we have Ophelia and her mob claiming terms such as “gender traitor”, “sister punisher” and “chill girl” were NOT taken up and used frequently by the Baboons and their followers. Just a pity the Pit has screencapped and documented dozens of examples of those terms being used with NO condemnation from the FfTB leadership. But this is typical of Ophelia and her insane sycophants – lying liars.

I claim no such thing. I said, truthfully, that … Read the rest

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Raw Story offers the top five rape apologist responses to the Steubenville verdict, so you don’t have to go looking for them and evaluating them.

1. CNN: “Those poor boys’ lives are ruined”

CNN correspondent Candy Crowley responded to the verdict by bemoaning the sad future of two rapists who traumatized one young girl for life but would never get to live out their football dreams.

3. Author/blogger Michael Crooke: “It’s just buyer’s remorse”
Author/blogger Michael Crook, who additionally claims that “rape doesn’t exist,” won the race for most-likely-to-be-poorly-executed satire, at least until he took to his Twitter feed to demand that the survivor be “held accountable”, tell women that “skimpy clothing is pretty much implied consent” and encourage every

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Gee, is Mitch McConnell a fan of the slime pit?

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) got in a few yucks during his 2013 CPAC speech Friday morning, telling a crowd that he thinks the Democratic Party’s 2016 presidential field is looking like “a rerun of ‘The Golden Girls.’”

“Don’t tell me the Democrats are the party of the future when their presidential ticket in 2016 is shaping up to look like a rerun of ‘The Golden Girls,’” he said. The crowd erupted with laughter.

Ahahahahaha – that’s so funny. Old; geddit? Women who are old. Hilarious, right? Stupid bitches – they should just die instead of hanging around getting old.… Read the rest

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A guy got beaten up by shouty racist bully-boys on a Manchester tram packed with football fans, and nobody helped, instead everybody just watched, as if it were an entertainment.

Prakash Patel, 56, from New Moston, was on a tram with his daughter Devyani  at Trafford Bar when he suffered a tirade of racist abuse followed by a sustained vicious assault. He was punched in the face and head more than 18 times and suffered two black eyes and concussion.

He tells what happened.

WE had been to the Fulham match at Old Trafford. We go as often as we can because we are big fans, we’ve been going for 25 years and never had any trouble. There were

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Keep the title in mind.

It’s a beautiful spring afternoon here, one of the first we’ve had, and I went out into it, and not ten minutes along I saw a dog get hit by a car.

I probably could have prevented it, and I failed to.

There’s this scenic walk a couple of minutes from where I live, overlooking Puget Sound and the mountains. Where the street curves from south to east, there’s a little open park overlooking the view and diagonally across the street a little closed park that used to be a private garden. It’s a busy spot on days like today. I was approaching the curve and the open park when a boxer came racing out … Read the rest

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Physioproffe said let’s for fun post pictures of our bookshelves so I said ok so here’s my picture.

… Read the rest

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