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Frivolous law suit dismissed

Mar 17th, 2012 8:03 am | By

Remember Tom Martin, the MRA who was suing LSE for sexism? The one who likes to call women “whores!” when they disagree with him? His case has been dismissed; he has to pay LSE’s costs.

Representing himself at his application for a trial at the Central London County Court on Tuesday, Mr Martin complained of a lack of men-only sessions in the university’s gym and the preponderance of posters in the corridors advertis­ing services for women without the presence of similar materials geared towards men.

Mr Martin, who describes himself as a feminist, said “hard” chairs in the library were uncomfortable for men and that a “male blaming culture” was evident in course materials, which “ignored men’s issues”

… Read the rest

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Sarah Ditum on anti-abortion bullies *

Mar 16th, 2012 | Filed by

Abortion opponents are alarmingly willing to adopt increasingly aggressive tactics aimed at abortion providers and the women they treat.… Read the rest

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Tom Martin’s sex discrimination case against LSE dismissed *

Mar 16th, 2012 | Filed by

Mr Martin was ordered to pay the LSE’s legal costs subject to a financial assessment.… Read the rest

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Rock Beyond Belief wins a victory *

Mar 16th, 2012 | Filed by

If you care about the constitutional rights of our nation’s armed forces personnel, and you most certainly should, make the trip out to Fort Bragg, N.C., and witness history unfold.… Read the rest

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Mark your calendars

Mar 16th, 2012 3:52 pm | By

And speaking of going to things – for people in the Seattle area – Richard Dawkins, Elisabeth Cornwell, and Sean Faircloth will be doing a talk in Bellevue on April 1. Details at RDF.… Read the rest

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Well that went awry

Mar 16th, 2012 3:47 pm | By

Rock Beyond Belief has an official statement from Fort Bragg saying they are allowed to be critical of organized religion. Chris Rodda explains how that happened.

So, why are we thanking Major Dowty? Well, because it was his blog post about his “concern” over the lyrics of a Rock Beyond Belief performer being picked up by FOX News that caused Fort Bragg officials to scrutinize the Rock Beyond Belief lineup and attempt to require additional promises from the performers and speakers that they would not be critical of religion.

But Justin stood his ground, as he always does, and got it in writing that the speakers and performers at Rock Beyond Belief can be critical of religion (just like

… Read the rest

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Hazlitt

Mar 16th, 2012 3:32 pm | By

We were talking about Hazlitt on the Baggini/de Botton thread, and it appears that some of you know not of him. Do not die before you have remedied this!

There is a sample of his essays online along with entire books. From The Spirit of the Age, the chapter on William Gifford, editor of the Quarterly Review:

Mr. Gifford, in short, is possessed of that sort of learning which is likely to result from an over-anxious desire to supply the want of the first rudiments of education: that sort of wit which is the offspring of ill-humour or bodily pain: that sort of sense which arises from a spirit of contradiction and a disposition to cavil at

… Read the rest

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US religious group holding “vigil” at London abortion clinic *

Mar 16th, 2012 | Filed by

Robert Colquhoun, a campaign director of 40 Days for Life’s London campaign, said they are there to pray and to show there is love in the community.… Read the rest

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Another week, another inch of heathen progress

Mar 16th, 2012 11:08 am | By

Oh dear god, Julian is still boring for Britain. What in hell do the people at Comment is Free – Andrew? David? – think they’re doing? Do they really think the series – Heathen’s Progress – is so brilliant or witty or enlightening or whatever to be worth carrying for all this time? Didn’t it start last October or something?

[pause to look]

No. Even worse: September. September 30, but still September.

Maybe the subhead for the series is all the explanation needed.

Julian Baggini sets out on a pilgrimage towards the truth, picking his way past the noisome swamp of New Atheist controversies…

It’s a chance to stick a finger in the eye of the noisomely swampy gnu … Read the rest

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Laila Lalami on the culture of silence in Morocco *

Mar 16th, 2012 | Filed by

The public prosecutor failed Amina by not immediately proceeding with an arrest and an investigation.… Read the rest

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Bishop to hospitals: let women die, that’s an order

Mar 16th, 2012 8:34 am | By

Yes really. This isn’t my usual hyperbole, it’s exactly what the bishop of Phoenix, Thomas Olmsted, tells the president of Catholic Healthcare West in an official letter dated November 22, 2010.

I now ask that CHW agree to the following requirements by Friday, December  17, 2010. Only if all of these items are agreed to, will I postpone any action against CHW and St. Joseph’s Hospital. Specifically, I require the  following in order for me to postpone any further canonical action directed  against St. Joseph’s Hospital:

1. CHW must acknowledge in writing that the medical procedure that resulted in the abortion at St. Josephs’ hospital was a violation of ERD 47, and so will never occur again at

… Read the rest

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December 2010: Episcopal evil

Mar 16th, 2012 8:13 am | By

Here’s the December 2010 post in which I became aware that it’s explicit Catholic church policy that women should be allowed to die rather than have a life-saving abortion.

December 26 2010

The ACLU letter to the administrators of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services says something I hadn’t known, something quite staggering. The trouble is, I haven’t been able to find it anywhere else, so I can’t be sure it’s accurate. I would email the ACLU to ask, but they say they get too much mail to answer.

…just last week it was revealed that the Bishop of Phoenix threatened to remove his endorsement of St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center – where, as discussed in our previous

… Read the rest

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Catholic thanatophilia, December 2010

Mar 16th, 2012 8:04 am | By

Some readers of the Texas Taliban post have expressed surprise that some rules against abortion can be downright murderous, so I thought I would go digging through the archive. I too was surprised in December 2010 to learn just exactly how explicitly murderous the policy of the Catholic church and in particular the US Conference of Catholic bishops actually is.

Here is one post on the subject (click on the link to the original to read the comments) -

December 28, 2010

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops insists on exactly the same murderous policy that the rebarbative bishop of Phoenix does. The CCB is very clear about it. The CCB doesn’t mess around.

“Surgery to terminate the life of

… Read the rest

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Egypt: setback for women’s right not to be raped by cops *

Mar 15th, 2012 | Filed by

On Sunday, an Egyptian military tribunal acquitted an army doctor of performing so-called virginity tests on seven female protesters last spring.… Read the rest

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We don’t need altar boys

Mar 15th, 2012 4:18 pm | By

I know, I’m kind of spamming you, but there were all those days when there was only a placeholder or two, plus I keep finding things.

Like the Catholic church again forgetting that it’s supposed to occupy the moral high ground and revealing itself to be as brutally self-serving as any other set of thugs.

Turning the tables on an advocacy group that has long supported victims of pedophile priests, lawyers for the Roman Catholic Church and priests accused of sexual abuse in two Missouri cases have gone to court to compel the group to disclose more than two decades of e-mails that could include correspondence with victims, lawyers, whistle-blowers, witnesses, the police, prosecutors and journalists.

They could do … Read the rest

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Catholic church bullies victims’ group *

Mar 15th, 2012 | Filed by

Bill Donohue explains, “The church has been too quick to write a check, and I think they’ve realized it would be a lot less expensive in the long run if we fought them one by one.”… Read the rest

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A triumph for the Texas Taliban

Mar 15th, 2012 2:54 pm | By

So there’s this couple in Texas looking forward to their second baby, a brother for their 2-year-old daughter.

Yet now my doctor was looking grim and, with chair pulled close, was speaking of alarming things. “I’m worried about your baby’s head shape,” she said. “I want you to see a specialist—now.”

My husband looked angry, and maybe I did too, but it was astonishment more than anger. Ours was a profound disbelief that something so bad might happen to people who think themselves charmed. We already had one healthy child and had expected good fortune to give us two.

Instead, before I’d even known I was pregnant, a molecular flaw had determined that our son’s brain, spine and legs

… Read the rest

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Oh now that’s really crafty

Mar 15th, 2012 2:18 pm | By

This is not good. This is not good at all. News from San Diego:

The U.S. Solicitor General Wednesday joined the appeal of a ruling that declared the Mt. Soledad cross unconstitutional, raising the chances that the U.S. Supreme Court will accept the case.

The appeal of the 9th U.S. Court of Appeal ruling was filed last month by the Liberty Institute, a nonprofit legal group specializing in religious rights.

That is to say, a group of lawyers specializing in attempts to frame theocratic power-grabs as “religious rights.”

Check out their front page (and note that the url is freemarket.org, and laugh inwardly at thoughts about Ayn Rand). Check out the big screaming headline

Help Save Our Veterans Memorials

… Read the rest

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Tidying up

Mar 15th, 2012 10:03 am | By

A few last notes on QED.

I was doing talk-prep at the start of the morning Saturday so I missed most of a talk on the European werewolf, but I did make it to excellent talks by Steve Jones and David Aaronovitch. (I never met either of them, alas. This event was a big success, so there were a lot of people, so it was impossible to meet everyone.) In the afternoon Richard Saunders did a great talk about being a tv skeptic and how to fake the power balance bracelet demonstration. (It’s simple. First you exert pressure on the subject in a way guaranteed to tip her over, then when she’s put on the bracelet you exert pressure on … Read the rest

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Rape victim forced to marry her rapist, kills herself *

Mar 15th, 2012 | Filed by

Amina Filali, 16, swallowed rat poison after being severely beaten by her rapist “husband.”… Read the rest

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