Oh gosh, who could have predicted – George Zimmerman pulled a shotgun on his girlfriend the other day. There we all were thinking he’d learned his lesson and would totally be more careful with guns in the future! Were we dumb or what.

Amanda Marcotte asks some difficult questions.

…tightening up gun laws is known to make it better for victims of domestic violence. States that pass laws requiring a background check on all handgun sales have 38 percent fewer gun murders of women at the hands of current or former partners. A quarter of a million domestic abusers have tried to buy guns in this country, only to be unable to pass the background check.  

Unfortunately, the Zimmerman

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If you see an organized group of people pursuing an activity for 30 months and then you see a couple of members of that group pursuing what looks like the same activity, it’s not confirmation bias to conclude that they’re doing what it looks as if they’re doing. It may be a mistake, but it’s not confirmation bias.

That’s my helpful hint for the day.… Read the rest

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Oh good grief. Do students who are members of the Edinburgh University Law Society really need to be told that white people “blacking up” by way of a costume is not funny or cool or hip this late in the game?

The Beerientering event, which took place on Thursday night, asked students to follow an “around the world” fancy dress code.

However, pictures soon began circulating on social media of four students – three men and one woman – “blacked up” to represent Somali pirates.

Third year Social Anthropology student Amie Robertson, 19, who is a member of the Amnesty Society and the Tibet Society, was one of those who challenged the group.

She said: “We ran into them in

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Nina Martin at ProPublica has a story on another example of a Catholic hospital attempting to prevent doctors from discussing abortion with patients even when a pregnancy threatens a woman’s life.

A dispute between a Colorado cardiologist and the hospital he works for has highlighted a growing area of concern among patient advocates and civil libertarians: gag rules imposed on doctors and nurses by Catholic health-care providers.

In a complaint filed Wednesday, ACLU of Colorado [1] accused Mercy Regional Medical Center in Durango, in the remote southwest corner of the state, of illegally telling doctors and other employees that they cannot discuss abortion with patients, even if a pregnancy threatens a woman’s life. The complaint was filed with the

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An investigative reporter named Dan Tilkin has found ten more dead children of faith healers in an Idaho cemetery.

A former member of the Followers of Christ advised him to go to Peaceful Valley and look for two specific names.
He found them. He found many more.

Garrett Dean Eells.

The coroner’s report says Garrett was a 6-day-old baby who died of interstitial pneumonitis. That’s pneumonia, untreated.

Jackson Scott Porter.

Jackson was a baby girl. She lived only 20 minutes. The coroner’s report said she received no pre-natal care.

…

Her grandfather, Mark Jerome, says she died in his house three months ago after his daughter went into labor.

“Well, when she came over, she was just sick – like

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Tweeted by Charles Stewart @BirdTerrifier.

Geddit?

Geddit?

Brilliant, right? Just never gets stale, right? Intelligent, right?

Yeah. Welcome to “the community.”… Read the rest

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More on the LOL Albert Einstein sexually assaults Marie Curie video, from Jonathan Eisen at Phylogenomics.

Wow.  I just do not know even what to say here really.  My Facebook feed is filling up with discussion about this video “A Very Special Thanksgiving Special | It’s Okay to be Smart” from PBS Digital Studios and I thought it would be important to share this with a wider audience.

The video includes scenes like the following:

Marie Curie is the only female scientist represented who says “It was very nice to be included”.

That is, she’s the only woman, and the only one who says it was nice to be included.

Read the whole thing. It even has his school … Read the rest

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A police chief in India made a horrible remark about rape the other day.

[CBI chief Ranjit] Sinha made the remark on Tuesday during a conference about illegal sports betting and the need to legalise gambling. He said if the country could not stop gambling, it could at least make some revenue by legalising it. “If you cannot enforce the ban on betting, it is like saying, ‘If you can’t prevent rape, you enjoy it’,” he said.

Speaking to the media on Wednesday, Sinha said he was sorry if his statement hurt the sentiments of some people and added that he made the remark inadvertently.

Well that’s kind of the point – it indicates that he thinks rape can … Read the rest

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There’s this guy Joe Hanson, a biologist and the host and writer of PBS Digital Studios’ video series It’s Okay to be Smart. He reports that his latest video took some heat.

My desk is covered in bobblehead dolls of famous scientists. This week I put out a video where they joined me for Thanksgiving Dinner.

Many people have contacted me on Twitter in the past day to say they are offended by that video. To you, and others, I am deeply sorry.

The criticism directed at the video (and much of it at me personally) centers around Albert Einstein’s advances toward Marie Curie. I should mention that Madame Curie is the only female science doll at the

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There’s been an arrest in an FGM case in the UK, which could result in the first ever prosecution there.

The victim was five weeks old.

Sources say the victim’s age is unprecedented and extensive efforts are being made to gather the evidence needed to bring charges. The barbaric practice — which can involve the removal of all or parts of the labia and clitoris or the sewing up of the vagina — has been illegal in Britain since 1985.

No charges have been brought since then as secrecy and a lack of reporting have hindered police efforts to enforce the law.

Detectives believe evidence about the mutilation of the baby girl could now lead to a breakthrough and

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A grocery store owner in Iowa likes to lecture his employees on how to be more biblical. He lectured one of them so much in such an annoying way that she up and quit.

Sherri Chafin said she quit in January 2012 after Stille preached to her about the wisdom of King Solomon and questioned her lifestyle. She filed for unemployment pay.

“He told me that I should read one psalm, or one chapter, per day, something like that,” Chafin testified at an unemployment hearing.

Chafin said Stille also criticized aspects of her life.

“He asked me if I was receiving food stamps, or any welfare, or anything like that. He told me that if I was, it was unjust

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Rumors are flying about what happened at Skepticon very early this morning, and Dave Muscato said “please distribute” on his update when he posted it on Facebook, so I might as well distribute it here too. The original is at Skepticon.

My name is Dave Muscato; I am the Public Relations Director for American Atheists. I am at the Skepticon conference in Springfield, MO, although I am attending on my own “off-duty” this weekend and not in a working capacity for American Atheists.

Early Saturday morning, there was a security incident and I would like to clear up any misconceptions, explain where things stand, and tell you how Skepticon has resolved the situation.

About 4 AM on Saturday morning,

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Where else? Comics. Doctor NerdLove says about it.

I’m lucky to be friends with a lot of insanely talented people in all walks of the comic industry, from up and coming talents, rising stars and established names, writers, artists and publishers… and every woman I know involved in the comics industry has a story similar to Tess’.

Every. Single. One.

Well…that’s discouraging.

Men in positions of power and authority – creators, editors and publishers, convention runners – making passes and unwelcome remarks or trying to manipulate young and impressionable female creators into sex… talk to enough women in comics and you’d think you were hearing about the goings-on at Sterling Cooper, not about conventions in 2013.

That’s…familiar.

This behavior is

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Udo gets out in front of the war on Christmas rhetoric to reassure nervous Fox News addicts.

There is no war. Atheists like festivities as much as the next person. We just don’t pretend it has anything to do with god sending baby Jesus to carry presents to some wise guys.

One also can’t help but wonder how many the Muslims enjoying their Eid al-Adha celebrations would be willing to sacrifice their sons to their God, because Eid celebrations are actually celebrating a father’s willingness to sacrifice his son to demonstrate obedience to Allah – it goes without saying that the Bible offers similarly disconcerting stories of human sacrifice in the name of the Lord.

Seriously. Imagine a holiday celebrating … Read the rest

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Well hahahaha homophobes, you lose and Dayna Morales wins – at least when it comes to her tip and to your reputation. CNN reports that tips for Dayna are pouring in from all over the world so yaboosucks The Hatefuls.

“I was offended. I was mad at first, and then I was more so hurt,” 22-year-old Dayna Morales told CNN.

Morales, who did a tour with the Marine Corps between 2009 and 2011, said she has been “out open and proud for years,” but “never discussed with them (the family) anything; it was their pure assumption.”

“It’s disrespectful and it’s hurtful,” she said. “I feel bad for their children because that’s how they are going to be raised.”

It is … Read the rest

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About the server stiffed by the godbothering couple in Kansas. They too left a note saying they stiffed him for reasons, and holy reasons at that.

A pair of Christian diners stiffed their 20-year-old server at Carraba’s Italian restaurant in Overland Park, Kansas, on the grounds that his homosexuality is “an affront to God.”

How do they know? How do they know people who stiff servers aren’t an affront to god while people who do homosexuality are god’s favorite thing ever? Did god send them a notarized affidavit?

KCTV reports that the server, who asked that his name not be identified, went to the table after the group of customers left and, instead of a tip, found this

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And speaking of random stupid undermotivated is-that-really-necessary petty hateful nastiness, there’s that couple that went out to dinner at Gallop Asian Bistro in Bridgewater New Jersey on Wednesday night.

Dayna Morales, a server at Gallop Asian Bistro in Bridgewater, N.J., said a family dining at the restaurant Wednesday night skipped the tip on their $93.55 bill and scribbled an explanation why, reported ABC News.

The note on the receipt, left by a couple with two young children, read: “Sorry, I cannot tip because I do not agree with your lifestyle and the way you live your life.”

Excuse me? Since when is tipping an opportunity to express an opinion on the way someone else lives her life? What business … Read the rest

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Full name Sophia, Michelin-starred General of the First Mediterranean Iron Chef Batallion. Originally a comment on If you believe that good is a real and necessary part of the universe.

I disagree with the idea that if you believe good exists and is a necessary part of the universe in a religious context, you will be compelled to do good. In fact, I see it as potentially inspiring exactly the opposite.

Religious beliefs* tend to take concepts and try to form them into “things”. Love becomes a thing – god is love. Evil becomes a thing, the devil. Faith becomes the thing you must do all the time, sin and martyrdom and all those words becomes much more than … Read the rest

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Martin Robbins has, as he says, done a bloody petition. He hates them but did this one anyway, so you see how it is.

BBC Question Time: Please give scientists proper representation on Question Time

He provides a graph on it:

Since the last general election, scientists have been less well-represented on BBC Question time than reality TV show contestants. Nigel Farage of UKIP – a party without an MP – has appeared on the show four times more often than all scientists put together. Important debates on climate change have been conducted with denialists such as Melanie Phillips, Nigel Lawson and James Delingpole, without a single climate scientist given an opportunity to contribute. Debates on drug policy

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