Sara Mayhew is still desperately seeking attention. Every once in awhile I grant her wish. Today is one such time. She fired off a bunch of tweets at me earlier today; I retweeted some; Nick Cohen (who’s a friend of mine) replied to one.

Not quite accurate.… Read the rest

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

It’s International Blasphemy Day, people!

… Read the rest

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

More on Golden Dawn.

A Greek lawmaker sought by police surrendered on Sunday, bringing to six the number of legislators from the extreme-right Golden Dawn party now in custody and facing criminal charges.

Christos Pappas — a lawmaker described by prosecutors as the Golden Dawn’s No. 2 official — was formally charged with membership in a criminal organization with intent to commit crimes, like his five fellow legislators, including Golden Dawn leader Nikos Michaloliakos.

Besides the six lawmakers, another 14 Golden Dawn members and two police officers have been arrested and charged with the same crimes. Another 10 suspects, for whom arrest warrants were issued Saturday, are still at large, officials said.

They’ve been gathering the goods.

The prosecution

… Read the rest

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

Have you ever noticed what a terrible literary character “God” is?

Not like the Greeks. Athena, Aphrodite, Apollo – they were interesting, and they got involved. But “God”? Blegh.

That’s why Jesus, you know. People got bored, and they wanted a god who could put bums on seats, one with some good lines. Jesus can be pretty entertaining, in a rebel without a cause way. He’s uneven, but he has moments.

But “God” is so boring they had to get George Burns to play the part, so that people would think there’s someone interesting behind the name. But there isn’t. George Burns was just acting (he was acting George Burns), and the ____________ behind George Burns is boring as fuck.… Read the rest

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

Education is Forbidden but murder is not. That’s a strange thing.

Suspected Islamist gunmen have attacked a college in north-eastern Nigeria, killing up to 50 students.

The students were shot dead as they slept in their dormitory at the College of Agriculture in Yobe state.

…

A witness quoted by Reuters news agency counted 40 bodies at the hospital, mostly those of young men believed to be students.

College provost Molima Idi Mato, speaking to Associated Press, also said the number of dead could be as high as 50, adding that security forces were still recovering the bodies and that about 1,000 students had fled the campus.

I suppose they were jealous of the statistics from the Westgate Mall … Read the rest

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

Emer O’Toole relates the misadventures of David Gilmour and her reactions to same to, first, her struggles with devising a new curriculum for an introduction to Irish theatre, and, second, internet dating.

Yes, internet dating. I’m new in town, and I’ve joined a site for the first time. Having indulged in outrageous fanfaronade on my profile page and started shopping for mates, I noticed that hardly any of the other singletons on sale – male or female – listed fiction by women in their “favourite books” section. Were they afraid they’d catch pregnancy or menopause from female writers or something? I changed my profile to stipulate that I only wanted to hear from people who read books by women.

Then

… Read the rest

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

First published in India’s Frontline magazine; reposted here by permission.

Asaram Bapu’s alleged sexual assault on a young girl offers an opportunity to throw light on India’s superstition industry and lift the veil on the state-temple-corporate complex. By MEERA NANDA

At one level, the arrest of Asaram is a rather humdrum, same-old story. One more godman has fallen from grace. So, what is new under the sun? Aren’t we used to discovering the clay feet of our sadhu sants? Perhaps George Orwell was on to something when he said that “saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent”, for no all-too-human godman can ever live up to the qualities of godliness. Perhaps the wise course to take … Read the rest

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

Aphorisms. I can’t figure out if I like them or hate them. I suppose the answer is, banally enough, that I like the good ones and the bad ones not so much.

I spotted one I do like a lot. Of course it’s on Twitter; where else would it be? (It’s a funny thing but just a few days ago I heard someone on NPR grumbling about “being told what entrée you chose.” Come on. I was born just as the Vikings invaded Britain and even I know that’s not what Twitter is. There is plenty of random chatty personal stuff, sure, but there are also many many other categories, including fomenting revolution and organizing protests outside the Dáil. And … Read the rest

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

This image combined with its caption made me laugh.

You believe in what?… Read the rest

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

Yes busted. Booya!

The leader of Greece’s extreme-right Golden Dawn party and four other of its lawmakers were formally charged Saturday with membership in a criminal organization with intent to commit crimes, in an escalation of a government crackdown after a fatal stabbing blamed on a supporter.

It was the first time since 1974 that sitting members of Parliament have been arrested. The arrests underline the Greek government’s efforts to stifle the fiercely anti-immigrant party, which has been increasingly on the defensive since the killing.

Golden Dawn leader Nikos Michaloliakos, party spokesman Ilias Kassidiaris and Yannis Lagos, Nikos Michos and Ilias Panayiotaros were arrested by counterterrorism police. The latter two gave themselves up voluntarily. A sixth lawmaker, Christos Pappas

… Read the rest

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

Welp, it appears that Pat Condell got pissed off at PZ the other day.

Expect a few rounds of fuming racist comments today — I have been discovered by Pat Condell, and he’s sending his pals over to set us all straight.

Pat Condell @patcondell Many thanks to @pzmyers and everyone at the North Korea of free thought for a most amusing start to the day. http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/09/23/feminism-is-not-an-excuse-for-your-racism-pat-condell/

Ha ha, yes, because a blog network is just like a totalitarian state. I was just telling my kids they need to grow a beard and put on some weight if they ever expect to succeed me.

Pat Condell @patcondell Ha ha. Honoured to be slandered as racist by @pzmyers and his fellow

… Read the rest

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

And then there’s the academic peonage aspect.

In all the recent talk about dead white males and the living white males who teach them, we’ve missed something about the David Gilmour controversy. It’s not at all unusual for people to want to teach only the things they like, but, generally speaking, it is unusual for them to get what they want.

In other words, why did David Gilmour get such a sweet deal?

Consider this set of well-worn truisms about higher ed: arts enrolment is at an all-time low. The academic job market is bleaker than a house in a novel by Charles Dickens. Actual PhDs, who have trained to teach the curriculum, compete with hundreds of qualified applicants

… Read the rest

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

Yeah I already knew that, thanks.

Study: Everyone hates environmentalists and feminists

Of course everyone does. And you know why? Because lots of people work hard to make everyone hate environmentalists and feminists. People who hate feminism and feminists themselves work hard to convince everyone else that feminists are witch-hunters from North Korea. Oil companies and other interested parties hire PR firms to make environmentalists seem like soppy tree-hugging fools who will steal your SUV to plant potatoes in.

Writing in the European Journal of Social Psychology, Bashir and her colleagues describe a series of studies documenting this dynamic. They began with three pilot studies, which found people hold stereotyped views of environmentalists and feminists.

In one, the participants—228 Americans

… Read the rest

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

A bit of spam, exactly as is, including quotation marks and line breaks.

“Wow, this post is fastidious, my sister is analyzing these kinds of things, therefore I am
going
to let know her.”… Read the rest

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

So Judge John Jones might as well not have bothered writing that opinion in the Kitzmiller case? I ask because some eternally hopeful types in Kansas have filed a federal lawsuit claiming that science is religion and must be kept out of the public schools.

TOPEKA, Kan. — An anti-evolution group filed a federal lawsuit Thursday to block Kansas from using new, multistate science standards in its public schools, arguing the guidelines promote atheism and violate students’ and parents’ religious freedom.

So is it promoting atheism and violating students’ and parents’ religious freedom to teach about gravity without any balancing teaching that actually it’s God pushing everything down?

The nonprofit organization based in the small community of Peck, south

… Read the rest

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

Exactly. Holger Syme, Associate Professor of English at the University of Toronto, on David Gilmour’s version of professing literature.

…unlike Mr. Gilmour, who teaches the odd college course, I am a professor of English literature here, and it stung to see his bizarre, reactionary views on literature and teaching associated in the media with my institution, and in particular with its literary scholars.

That’s why I think it’s important to say that David Gilmour is not a colleague of mine (though I speak in this, and in the rest of this essay, only for myself, not for U of T). As far as I can tell from his published comments, he’s not much of a literature professor either. He

… Read the rest

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

Another spike that turned up in the stats: the JREF forum, a 214 page discussion titled Atheism Plus/Free Thought Blogs (FTB). This is on page 212.

I don’t know that person from a hole in the ground. Apparently it’s just perfectly normal to call me Ophie.… Read the rest

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

Ok I had a mouthful of broken end of the bag Safeway house brand corn chips when I started reading this so I nearly choked myself laughing while keeping my mouth closed. Nobody likes soggy half-chewed generic corn chip bits sprayed all over her desk.

The Life of Virginia Woolf, Beloved Chinese Novelist, As Told By David Gilmour

Virginia Woolf was a famous Chinese novelist. She was born in China, as is so popular among the Chinese, where she was born. She came in third during the Boxer Uprising, after which she wrote The Good Earth, which was about China, while being a woman novelist.

It was “She came in third during the Boxer Uprising” that did me in.… Read the rest

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

Hamza Tzortzis explains why it’s ok for a man to fuck a nine-year-old-girl if all the right conditions are met, and how much better that is than the stupid secular way of just having a flat law that nobody can fuck a nine-year-old-girl, period, end of story, never mind if the right conditions are met. Even if her father and her tribe give her to the man, secular law would still say no! Would you believe it?!

That part starts at one hour 56 minutes. The audience applauds enthusiastically.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_v2fFSdY2U

In case you don’t want to watch, Secular Party of Australia did a transcript of that section. (The debate was in Melbourne.) John Perkins represents Team Atheism.

John Perkins:

… Read the rest

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