Here’s a much-needed campaign, run by CFI.

Yes, do.

Right now health care is beset by two plagues:

1. The imposition of religious dogma on health care, resulting in limited access to and even the denial of medical services;
2. The shameless marketing of sham remedies, sold as “natural” or “traditional” cures, often accompanied by the rejection of scientifically proven treatments.

We need to come together to fight for health care based on sound, scientific principles.

We need a campaign to keep health care safe and secular.

Keep Health Care Safe and Secular is harnessing the talent, intelligence, and enthusiasm of people who want to ensure that our health care is focused on effective remedies and proven outcomes. We’re educating the public,

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

Originally a comment on To hell with making sense, eh?

Ah yes, Wimmin’s Lib. Burning bras. Damn uppity women jumping in front of the king’s horse. Patronising sitcoms. Patronising sketch shows. Bluff, honest CEOs explaining why they can’t possibly pay women the same as men because babies, menstruation, hormones and they’d only spend it on fashion and hair anyway.

I spend half my time being genuinely shocked on remembering that we live in the 21st century and the other half being even more surprised that we obviously still live in the fucking 70s.

I grew up in those exact fucking 70s in the UK. The very concept of feminism was widely and blandly treated as a joke. Why, feminists didn’t … Read the rest

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

Gwyneth Paltrow thinks water thinks you are thinking about it, and that it can tell when you are thinking mean things about it versus thinking nice things about it.

Gwyneth Paltrow loves nothing more than imparting life advice to her followers, and while that advice has dabbled in the pseudoscience before, it’s rarely been as totally off the rails as the May 29th edition of her newsletter goop. Paltrow begins:

I am fascinated by the growing science behind the energy of consciousness and its effects on matter. I have long had Dr. Emoto’s coffee table book on how negativity changes the structure of water, how the molecules behave differently depending on the words or music being expressed around

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

This is what I mean. kellym linked to a bit of Twitter harassment of Pamela Gay, so I took a look at the guy doing the harassing, and this is that guy.

one can speak either yes and no about everything… My social views: I am against racism, homophobia, capitalism, fundamentalism, and feminism

This is what I keep saying. People who recoil in horror at the very idea of being racist or homophobic…proudly declare themselves opposed to feminism. That’s what I don’t get.

Racial equality; good. Sexual preference equality; good. Gender equality; ewwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Is it just obvious? Racial equality, meh, he doesn’t have to do anything. Sexual preference equality, meh, he doesn’t have to do anything. But gender equality … Read the rest

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

Catherine Corless has a synopsis of her research on that Facebook page but it’s hard to read in the FB format. I made an easier to read version.

The Mother/Baby Home Tuam

The Mother/Baby Home in Tuam was opened in 1925 and was run by the Bon Secours Sisters to cater for unmarried mothers and their babies.

This was an era in our history when pregnancy before marriage was deeply frowned upon by church, state and family. The unfortunate woman who found herself in this predicament was quickly sent to an institution such as the Mother/Baby Home out of sight of prying neighbours and relatives.

The Bon Secours Sisters were a nursing congregation who had come from Dublin to take … Read the rest

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

Here (a public page on Facebook) you can find an interview with Catherine Corless by Mark Patterson on Radio Ulster May 27.

The children were segregated from other children in the classroom.

He’s asking why she cares, when she doesn’t suspect “foul play.” For some reason neither of them is really talking about the neglect, the malnutrition, the conditions in which infection could spread easily.

At 11:50 they agree that there must have been such “homes” all over Ireland.

There’s a Facebook page Mother/Baby Home Research.

 … Read the rest

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

Damion Reinhardt:

Originally Posted by Brive1987
The current tag team efforts against DJ, with no real objective other than to get him fired or grind him into resigning sums up why I loathe the SJ brigade.
Agreed! They really seem to hate his guts, for some reason. Elyse even took a poll of whom they hate the most and he was right up there with Professor “Dear Muslima” himself.

Originally Posted by Brive1987 
Only consolation is that both the CFI and JREF Boards must have become inured to the relentless calls for the sacking and discipline of their CEOs.
It does seem to be a constant refrain. I’d go so far as to wager that Women in Secularism has become

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

Oh yay, CAFE volunteers tell you why EQUAL RIGHTS are so great and why they are for EVERYONE and not just some…like…you know…women.

Pay special attention at 15 seconds in – see that guy in the blue shirt next to the guy in the fedora? Handing out leaflets? That’s Justin “oh no not Justin Trottier but a different Justin altogether” Trottier. Justin Trottier, is who that is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHJIRCAgIvU… Read the rest

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

More on the mass grave discovered on the site of a Mother and Baby home for “fallen women” in County Galway in Ireland.

Catherine Corless, the local historian and genealogist, remembers the Home Babies well. “They were always segregated to the side of regular classrooms,” Corless tells IrishCentral. “By doing this the nuns telegraphed the message that they were different and that we should keep away from them.

“They didn’t suggest we be nice to them. In fact if you acted up in class some nuns would threaten to seat you next to the Home Babies. That was the message we got in our young years,” Corless recalls.

They were outcasts. They were shunned. They were treated like … Read the rest

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

Another entry in Ireland’s squalid, hateful, brutal history – the discovery of a mass grave holding the remains of 796 infants and children in County Galway. Yes that’s right – mass grave, holding 796 infants and children. A crime scene, in short; a massive crime scene; a crime scene reminiscent of the crime scene at Robert Pickton’s pig farm.

According to a report in the Irish Mail on Sunday, a mass grave has been located beside a former home for unmarried mothers and babies in County Galway. The grave is believed to contain the bodies of up to eight hundred babies, buried on the former grounds of the institution known locally as “The Home” in

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

How Iranian state television goes about discrediting a woman who has escaped their clutches: it claims she stripped her clothes off on a London street while her son stood watching, and was promptly raped by three men. Sounds plausible, doesn’t it.

Iranian state television aired a report claiming that the Britain-based journalist Masih Alinejad, founder of the “My Stealthy Freedom” social media campaign against mandatory veiling, had been assaulted and raped in London in the presence of her son.

The broadcast described Alinejad as a “nexus of sedition” for her campaign, which has garnered over 430,000 likes on Facebook. Hundreds of Iranian women from inside the country have posted pictures of themselves taking their headscarves off in public.

State

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

Sometimes the gender nonsense just gets too silly. Shrugging off hurricanes because they have girly names? Really?

According to a recent study by University of Illinois researchers, hurricanes with women’s names are likely to cause significantly more deaths than those with masculine names — not because the feminine-named storms are stronger, but because they are perceived as less threatening and so people are less prepared.

So all over Florida, people hear news reports that Hurricane Shirley is headed straight for them and they just laugh because how hard can a Shirley hit?

The researchers examined human fatality numbers for 92 storms that made landfall in the U.S. between 1950 and 2012, excluding Katrina from 2005 and Audrey from 1957 because

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

The Washington Post takes notice of the practice of stoning women and girls to death for doing things like looking at a boy.

Despite creeping modernity, secular condemnation and the fact there’s no reference to stoning in the Koran, honor killings claim the lives of more than 1,000 Pakistani women every year, according to a Pakistani rights group.

They have widespread appeal. Eighty-three percent of Pakistanis support stonings for adultery according to a Pew survey, and only 8 percent oppose it. Even those who chose modernity over Islamic fundamentalism overwhelmingly favor stonings, according to Pew research.

If that statistic is true it seems very unlikely that the figure is only 1000 women murdered for “honor” every year.

Some

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

Look what Amy’s got! The Los Angeles Women’s Atheist and Agnostic Group, all set up and ready for you to join if you’re in Los Angeles or feel like getting there the first Tuesday of every month.

Why such a group? Well, because it’s needed.

Over the last few years, ever since Richard Dawkins made his now famous snipe at Rebecca, I have  found myself felt pushed out of certain spaces in the skeptic and secular community, online and sometimes in person, simply for remaining an outspoken part of this blog.

Over the years, I have been harassed, talked over and talked down to. I have been threatened, ridiculed, intimidated and lied about. I have been stalked, mocked, Photoshopped

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

Now this is a very brief comment, and I don’t usually make guest posts out of single paragraphs – although I don’t really know why, since one of the glories of the blog is No Rules, and I do very short posts myself when I feel like it – but it matters so as many people as possible should see it so this time I am. Originally a comment on A culture obsessed with promoting and celebrating female success.

As an ex-Muslim woman from the Middle East and a victim of oppressive misogyny at the hands of Islamist power structures, I absolutely condemn continued attempts to use the plight of Muslim women to trivialize harassment and misogyny in the United … Read the rest

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

The editorialists at the Providence Journal are worried about low-wage workers coming to eat their brains.

Let us hope Providence City Council members, in seeking to woo some powerful interest groups in an election year, do not inflict even more harm by dramatically hiking the minimum wage. It is expected to take up the matter this month.

My god the defenders of the rich and comfortable do like to turn everything backwards, don’t they. Low-wage workers are “powerful interest groups” now while the people who pay the low wages are their downtrodden helpless victims.

Certainly the activists were out in force last week, clamoring for an ordinance mandating a $15-an-hour minimum wage in Providence for hotel workers,

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

The reports that Meriam Ibrahim was going to be released from prison were premature, according to the BBC.

Reports on Saturday said a Sudanese official had confirmed that Meriam Ibrahim, who gave birth in custody, would be freed in a few days.

But the foreign ministry said on Sunday Ms Ibrahim could only be released after a successful judicial appeal.

Her death sentence has sparked international outrage.

Ms Ibrahim was brought up as an Orthodox Christian, but a judge ruled last month that she should be regarded as Muslim because that had been her father’s faith.

She refused to renounce her Christianity and now faces hanging for apostasy.

It looks almost as if they’re teasing the world – “You think … Read the rest

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

Finally, in the UK a doctor is defrocked for helping with FGM.

A doctor has been struck off after a tribunal found he offered advice on arranging a female genital mutilation (FGM) operation.

Birmingham doctor Ali Mao-Aweys was captured on covert recordings discussing the procedure with a journalist posing as a patient.

A Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) panel ruled he should be erased from the medical register.

It’s a step.… Read the rest

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