I think I’ve figured out the rules now, with help from Tim Skellett aka “Gurdur” who explained it to Avicenna on Twitter. They go like this:

When someone talks shit about “FTB” that doesn’t actually mean Freethought blogs, it means “core” bloggers. Tim Skellett to Avicenna:

BTW, once again you name a peripheral FTB blogger (yourself), not a core one. Again, *cough* revealing.

Who exactly are the core ones? Skellett gives the list a few tweets later, still talking to Avi.

@saramayhew seems to refer to the core FTB bloggers, which would be PZ, Brayton, szvan, Benson, McCreight, Greta. See next.

So them’s the rules, apparently. “FTB” is just shorthand for those six people; the other 30-whatever-it-is-now don’t count.… Read the rest

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The Times of India picked up a tweet on blasphemy by Taslima.

She makes us proud.… Read the rest

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Via Taslima – in Pakistan, a cleric cut his wife into pieces because she refused to wear a niqab and she sent their children to school.

Ahmad Aziz, father of the deceased Farzana Bibi, 36, said that she married Muhammad Sharif, 42, a resident of Bakkhal Bhir in Mumtazabad Colony.

They had three children.

Aziz said that Sharif led prayers at the neighbourhood mosque and also gave Quran lessons at their home. He said Sharif was short-tempered and would often beat up Farzana Bibi. He had been telling her to cover her face when she left the house.

Aziz said Farzana Bibi wore an abaya (gown), but did not want to cover her face.

Probably because she wanted to … Read the rest

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Because it came up in a Twitter conversation (with Vlad Chituc and Michael Payton) and because sometimes a good polemical response is called for, I thought we should revisit Hazlitt’s Letter to Gifford. (I say revisit because I did a post on it back in 2004.)

SIR, You have an ugly trick of saying what is not true of any one you do not like; and it will be the object of this letter to cure you of it. You say what you please of others : it is time you were told what you are. In doing this, give me leave to borrow the familiarity of your style : for the fidelity of the picture I shall be

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A friend on Twitter shared some flatulence de guerre:

Well all right then! We’ve got precedent.

Much more at io9.… Read the rest

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It’s deadly, it comes from the sea, it smells of fish and diesel oil -

Out of nowhere, apropos de bottes, context-free, random, Dadaist.

Jokes about farting on submarines always welcome.

 … Read the rest

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From Gnu Atheism on Facebook, again.

 … Read the rest

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Trudeau did a series on sexual harassment in the military this past week. The one for August 22 is especially…cogent.

In fact, if you report rape, your career is almost certainly over.

People keep saying – keep shouting, roaring, bellowing – that if there is rape or harassment victims must report it and if they have failed to report it or reported it too late or reported it to the wrong person or institution (too late or wrong in the view of the shouter, of course) then they are doing a terrible, criminal thing. But the reality is that reporting rape or harassment can fuck up the victim’s life even more than it already was. It’s not the case that … Read the rest

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Hey I’ve got a great idea for a sitcom. A guy rapes a girl of 14, see, and makes her pregnant, and she has the baby and her mother has to quit her job to take care of the baby. Good so far, right? Then – this is where it gets really funny – a judge decides to give jurisdiction to family court, so the girl is stuck with him for the next sixteen years! Hilarious or what?

The rape victim doesn’t think so.

“The plaintiff, a rape victim in a state criminal matter, became pregnant in 2009 at age 14 as a result of the crime and gave birth to her attacker’s child,” the lawsuit states.

“The defendant in

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Who else? Well there’s Anna Gunn, who plays the character Skyler White on Breaking Bad (which I’ve never seen, I should add in case I’m expected to be knowledgeable about the show). She gets hatred and threats, because…well because she plays this one tv character that people don’t like, because her character is a woman, married to a man, and even though the man does some bad things, well…

My character, to judge from the popularity of Web sites and Facebook pages devoted to hating her, has become a flash point for many people’s feelings about strong, nonsubmissive, ill-treated women. As the hatred of Skyler blurred into loathing for me as a person, I saw glimpses of an anger

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It was Merlyn’s 3d birthday yesterday. Dave Richards’s Merlyn. He has a birthday portrait.

… Read the rest

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Google says said happy 126th birthday to Erwin Schrödinger.

… Read the rest

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From Gnu Atheism on Facebook:

 … Read the rest

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A funny little thing about memory a couple of hours ago – a madeleine-equivalent but not to do with taste or smell. I happened on a mammoth yard sale which turned out to be loaded with interesting stuff. An old-fashioned wicker dolls’ carriage was the first thing I spotted, with old-fashioned doll dresses in it, plus a stack of handmade doll bedding in a pretty fabric. A couple of slipper chairs with purple velvet seats, an oddly-shaped floor lamp – and table after table after table full of dishes, costume jewelry, tchotchkes, toys – all sorts, and much nicer than the usual yard sale dreck. Hoarder-like in quantity but not in quality. I settled down to take my time and … Read the rest

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The “Gender Equality in the Secular Movement” Panel from Women in Secularism 2 is online.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzb_VFkB6ew

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But she smiled at me. But she didn’t object when I sat next to her. But she flirted back. But she let me kiss her. But she laughed at my joke. But she didn’t say no when I refilled her glass. But she drank the wine. But she let me in when I rang her doorbell.

MIKE “Handy” Hancock MP has a curious attitude to the treatment of women, judging by his lawyers’ efforts to defend him. If a woman lets a man into her home, she consents to his advances, the lawyers are arguing as they try to derail an investigation into the Portsmouth MP’s alleged harassment of a mentally ill constituent.

“In order for Hancock to have access

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