David Futrelle starts a post on Elliot Rodger with a horrible chart he says Rodger posted.

I couldn’t even figure it out at first, but then I did.

But his killing spree had nothing to with misogyny. Never forget that. It was just his own individual quirkiness.… Read the rest

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Here’s one I didn’t know about – Todd Kincannon, Tea Party honcho from South Carolina. Crooks and Liars is one source for this tweet (and there are others):

I was so impressed by that that I looked him up, and found a Salon article from January.

All the evidence indicates that Todd Kincannon, a former South Carolina GOP operative, is a bad dude. Not only in the sense that he frequently tweets things that are hostile, bigoted and dehumanizing — whichhedoes — but also in the sense that he’s quite likely a sexual harasser, too. A real winner.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, to find that Kincannon, who regards himself as some kind of

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Another horrible news item from Pakistan – Dawn reports that a US-based doctor in Pakistan to do humanitarian work was murdered as he visited an Ahmadi cemetery.

The doctor was in Pakistan on a short visit to do voluntary work at the Tahir Cardiac Hospital, a private institution that he himself helped build a few years back.

And that’s his reward.

The Wall Street Journal has more.

An American doctor of Pakistani origin was shot dead in central Pakistan by unidentified gunmen on Monday, police said, in an attack that appeared to target him because of his membership in the minority Ahmadiyya religious community.

Dr. Mehdi Ali, 50, was walking with family members in the town called Chanab

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This is a good one…

Sophie Rose @SophieT_UK · May 25

#YesAllWomen because the media present men as people but present women as sexual objects pic.twitter.com/UeQ0CMT9xd

Now of course that could in theory be a misleading because unrepresentative selection of Rolling Stone covers. It could be that a representative selection of Rolling Stone covers would show an equal number of men posing with strategic clothes left off and a seductive facial expression, and an equal number of women head and shoulders face front with shirt on looking thoughtful/sullen. That could be, in principle. But in reality?

You be the judge.… Read the rest

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Laurie Penny has an angry piece in the New Staggers about misogyny and the rush to deny that misogyny makes any difference to anything.

This is not the first time that women and unlucky male bystanders have been massacred by men claiming sexual frustration as justification for their violence. In 1989, 25-year-old Marc Lépine shot 28 people at the École Polytechnique in Quebec, Canada, claiming he was “fighting feminism”. Fourteen women died. In 2009, a 48-year-old man called George Sodini walked into a gym in the Pittsburgh area and shot 13 women, three of whom died. His digital manifesto was a lengthier version of Rodger’s, vowing vengeance against the female sex for refusing to provide him with pleasure and

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There’s a nice article at The Humanist about the Women in Secularism conference.

Lindsay’s opening remarks stressed CFI’s commitment to equality and added that “stirring up trouble…is how we advance as a movement.” A panel of writers and bloggers discussed online activism and the power and pitfalls of a viral hashtag like #bringbackourgirls. While some criticize the passing along of a Twitter hashtag as superficial activism, panelists saw it as using one’s privilege to elevate the voices of the less privileged (in that case raising awareness of the missing Nigerian school girls).

Moderated by Lindsay Beyerstein, the panel included Soraya Chemaly, Amy Davis Roth, Zinnia Jones, and Miri Mogilevsky in one of the best discussions of the conference. A

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There’s a police officer in Tulsa, Oklahoma – an officer officer, a captain – who thinks he has a “duty to proselytize” – even in uniform, even on duty – anyone who doesn’t have the same religious beliefs as his. Huh. I would think he has a duty not to, because separation of church and state. If there’s any branch of government you don’t want proselytizing you, it’s the police or the military.

Fortunately, a federal appellate court saw it the same way. The ACLU explains:

In 2011, the Islamic Society of Tulsa organized a Law Enforcement Appreciation Day to show its gratitude for protection provided after threats to its mosque. As part of its longstanding community-policing initiative, the

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Another screenshot. Must stop with all these screenshots. But…

This is from the comments on the Ex-Muslims of North America Facebook page’s posting of the New York Times article. It explains things so neatly…

Zubair Changaiz

shoot them all who leave islam

no concept of Ex Muslim or parallism, those people who leave islam there is no place in islam just shoot them

Hos Loftus Thanks for shooting down the “Islam is the religion of peace” and “there is no compulsion in Islam” crap!

Sam Al-Nahi Yeah, this must be that Muslim peace and serenity I keep hearing about.

Zubair Changaiz yup i know islam is the religion of peace and we muslim love humanity but those people who left

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To my surprise – I’m always surprised, no matter how repeatedly I see these things; I seem to be incurably naïve – I’m seeing people on Twitter complaining about “radical feminists” making connections between Elliot Rodger’s noisy explicit hatred of women and his murder of some women. It turns out it’s “selfish” and “grandstanding” to make this connection, even though Elliot Rodgers made it himself.

Steve Zara @sjzara

I see a really important question – can the extremely common harassment of women be enabling of violence? I have no idea.

Miranda Celeste Hale @mirandachale

@sjzara Plus, the #YesAllWomen thing is a fear-mongering stunt that encourages women to see themselves as perpetual victims. Fuck that.

Steve Zara @sjzara

@

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There’s also a good article in The Bell Jar on Elliott Rodger and his hatred of women and misogyny in general.

He was an active member of the “PUAhate, an online forum (which has been down since the shootings) dedicated to “revealing the scams, deception and misleading marketing techniques used by dating gurus and the seduction community to mislead men and profit from them.” And just to clarify, they’re not revealing these scams because of how vile and misogynistic they are, but rather because these men have tried these techniques and still failed to trick women into sleeping with them. These are men who both feel entitled to have sex with women and also blame all women everywhere for not

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Simon collected posts by Elliot Rodger on the Bodybuilding.com forum in a Storify. Rodgers is the guy who shot a bunch of people in Santa Barbara because nobody liked him and because women are shit. Be warned.

Women don’t deserve rights. They are evil, sadistic beasts who whore themselves out to degenerate men and ignore the men who actually deserve them.

I’m tired of seeing losers with hot chicks Seriously, today at my college I saw this short, ugly Indian guy driving a Honda civic, and he had a hot blonde girl in his passenger seat. What on earth is up with that?!?!? I would climb mount Everest 10 times just to have a girl like that with me.

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So now I’ve looked at it.

This is what it is; it is this.

Policy Recommendations on Tax Policy

[an image of a tax form with a pen lying across it]

The same tax rules should apply to all non-profit organizations, whether religious or secular. Because of separation of church and state, government should not provide tax loopholes to religious organizations, or excuse them from the disclosures that non-religious organizations must make.

Find an overview of our public policy recommendations touching on:

• Tax Loopholes for Religious Organizations

• Political Endorsement from the Pulpit

That’s it, that’s what there is. There’s nothing more. That’s their resource for us on the subject of policy on tax policy.… Read the rest

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So you go to the Global Secular Council’s Issues section, which it has seven of which.

Constitutional Law
Discrimination
Education
Health and Safety
International
Military
Tax Policy

Already that looks odd, because how can constitutional law be global? And are they pronouncing on tax policy for the whole world? And the global military? And if they’re global, isn’t is all supposed to be international, so why is there an International section?

So we’ll look at them.

Constitutional Law

Uh oh. Bad start. The image, for one -

I recognize it. Lots of people will recognize it. It’s not global. It’s Murkan.

And the first paragraph -

The first freedom protected by the Bill of Rights is the right of every

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The Global Secular tweeter is still saying opposite things from one tweet to the next – on the one hand it’s trying hard, it means well, it’s acting in good faith, it’s in earnest – on the other hand it calls me “my dear @OpheliaBenson” and “Ms Ophelia.”

On the one hand it’s totally answering our questions, on the other hand it favorites a tweet telling it to ignore criticism because it’s utterly baseless and obsessive.

Miranda Celeste Hale @mirandachale

@SecularCouncil I wouldn’t bother trying to reason w/those who are currently attacking you. Their criticism is utterly baseless & obsessive

Matt Penfold @mattpenfold_UK

@mirandachale@SecularCouncilDo you really want to be admitting that lack of racial and national

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The New York Times religion reporter Mark Oppenheimer did a big piece yesterday on ex-Muslims at Women in Secularism 3. 

Anyone leaving a close-knit belief-based community risks parental disappointment, rejection by friends and relatives, and charges of self-loathing. The process can be especially difficult and isolating for women who have grown up Muslim, who are sometimes accused of trying to assimilate into a Western culture that despises them.

“It was incredibly painful,” Heina Dadabhoy, 26, said during a discussion called “Women Leaving Religion,” which also featured three former Christians and one formerly observant Jew, the novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein. “My entire life, my identity, was being a good Muslim woman.”

That was a great panel – it was a … Read the rest

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Still working hard to build ties with the secular community…or something…

Matt Penfold @mattpenfold_uk 1h

@secularcouncil Of the 7 “issues” on your website only one is not about the US. Does only the US matter ? And do you know what global means?

Secular Council @SecularCouncil

We think we know what global means, @mattpenfold_UK: Our resource breadth. You’re right, though; our home base and starting focus is the US.

Ophelia Benson @OpheliaBenson

Your what? What does “resource breadth” mean? A Global Council is one that acts globally.

Secular Council @SecularCouncil

@mattpenfold_UK And we will, my dear @OpheliaBenson, we will! The Tweeters can’t stop us.

So much for the beloved “secular community” eh – if we … Read the rest

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