Via

 … Read the rest

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The Law Society is not going to withdraw its practice note on what it takes to be the correct interpretation of “Sharia succession rules.” The Lawyers’ Secular Society has a response.

The LSS had written a detailed open letter to the Law Society on 24 April 2014 with very specific questions (here). Two weeks later, on 8 May 2014, the Law Society eventually responded to that letter (here) but it failed to answer almost all of the LSS’s questions, with no explanation for this refusal.

The LSS also took part in a large public protest outside the Law Society’s offices in Chancery Lane, London on 28 April 2014, alongside human rights campaigners and women’s rights campaigners,

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Religious privilege? What do you mean? I don’t see any religious privilege.

Oh, you mean this?

A Harvard club’s plans to stage a satanic “black Mass” were abruptly cancelled Monday after drawing fire from the Archdiocese of Boston and condemnation from the president of the Ivy League school.

Lucien Greaves, a spokesman for the New York-based Satanic Temple, told the Boston Globe late Monday that the event was called off because no venue was available.

“Everyone involved, outside of the Satanic Temple, got really scared,” Greaves told the newspaper. “And I don’t necessarily blame them, because I understand that they were getting a lot of vitriolic hate mail, and I don’t think they expected it.”

Greaves was not immediately

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Ezra Resnick writes a Letter to a successful white male.

Congratulations! You’re a successful white male. Or, as you might prefer to put it, you’re a successful person who just happens to be a white male — why would anyone think your gender and race have anything to do with your success? That’s textbook sexism and racism. You worked hard to get where you are. You never asked for special treatment, nor do you recall ever receiving any.

There was discrimination in the past, sure, but that’s all over now. It ended one afternoon in…let’s see…1977 was it? That sounds right.

Now there is perfect total universal equality of opportunity, and all you have to do to know that … Read the rest

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Amanda Marcotte has bad news for the fans of the pope: he’s not as cuddly as some have been claiming.

I get the enthusiasm for “cool” Pope Francis, I really do. The idea that there could be a pope who is not clinging to a harshly medieval point of view but ready to move into the modern world is so appealing that of course we’re going to grasp onto any evidence, no matter how tenuous, that suggests that Pope Francis might be the one.

Meh. One – it’s just not possible, so attempting to grasp at evidence is pointless. The Catholic church is the Catholic church, not something else; it’s not possible to rise to the top positions by … Read the rest

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From a comment by latsot on Gervais “will continue to use offensive words like cunt, atheism & Derek”

@m0fa

I’m British too and like many other Brits I’m sick to death of your droning argument that we don’t consider “cunt” to be a gendered insult. I can speculate about a possible reason you think – or at least say – this: the insult “cunt” seems almost interchangeable with other insults, some also gendered (such as “dick”), and others not.

Unfortunately, there’s only one tiny flaw with that argument: it is bullshit. It’s bullshit partly because “cunt” is always known to be a worse insult than any of those others. It might be argued that this distinction is arbitrary; that … Read the rest

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Hey look – live streaming from the International Space Station.

Pale blue dot close up; your house from very far away.… Read the rest

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One of those “please share” items so I’m sharing it because wo.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow said it best: “Turn that frown upside down oil-soaked neighbourhood, you can get a job cleaning it up if you just have the right attitude. We’ll make it worth your while. That is seriously what Kinder Morgan is arguing to the freaking Canadian government about why they should be allowed to triple the capacity of their pipeline.”

More in the Vancouver Sun.

 … Read the rest

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An excellent piece at The Stone on “open carry” and the exciting time it is when a bunch of gun-toting fanatics can force law enforcement to back down because law enforcement doesn’t want yet another Waco or Ruby Ridge. Patrick Blanchfield

Earlier this month, in Bunkerville, Nev., representatives of the Bureau of Land Management withdrew from a tense standoff with supporters of Cliven Bundy, a rancher who owes the federal government over $1 million in unpaid fees for allowing his cattle to graze on public land. The hundreds of self-appointed militia and “states’ rights” activists who flocked to support Bundy, many in full tactical gear and openly carrying assault rifles, blockaded a federal interstate and trained their weapons on B.L.M.

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BBC 2 had a show about misogyny a couple of days ago, and the New Statesman has a review by Rachel Cooke.

She starts by saying misogyny is nothing new and she’s not sure it’s worse now than in the past.

I see, though, that in one sense all of this is irrelevant. What matters is that women feel misogyny is on the rise, there being so many exciting new outlets for the expression of woman hatred.

Well no, that’s not right, because it’s two different things. If women feel misogyny is on the rise when it isn’t, then it’s worth explaining that it isn’t. But the fact that there are so many exciting new outlets for the expression of … Read the rest

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Some comments left on one of the three or four irritable Facebook posts I fired off about Ricky Gervais yesterday:

All hail the great Atheist Community!… Read the rest

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Maki Naro @sciencecomic on Twitter:

Whenever anybody points out that “cunt” is a misogynistic slur pic.twitter.com/5zqxXwYSJp

 … Read the rest

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The menace of Boko Haram is not just a military issue – it is an ideological one. The west should help Nigeria defeat Boko Haram and win the battle of ideas.

The kidnapping of more than 200 school girls by Nigeria’s terrorist group, Boko Haram, has attracted outrage and condemnation from different parts of the globe.(1)

People across the world have joined the online campaign to ‘Bring Back Our Girls’ and pressure the government of Nigeria to do more in combating the menace of this Islamist group.(2,3).

The US, the UK and France have offered to help Nigeria rescue the girls and bring their abductors to justice.

But some people are speculating that an intervention by western countries could turn … Read the rest

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Another thing about Ricky Gervais’s bit of Facebook wisdom is how childishly wrong it is as a claim (much less an argument).

If you grabbed Hitler and shouted “stop killing innocent people you cunt”, someone on Facebook would call you out on your sexist language.

Well first we have to accept that “you” can “grab” Hitler in the same world where people will comment on Facebook about what you shouted at him. It’s too much to ask us to accept that. If Ricky Gervais were in a position to “grab” Hitler and shout something at him, he wouldn’t be in a position to report his shouting on Facebook.

Then, an even more demanding task: we have to accept that grabbing … Read the rest

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