A new website devoted to reviewing ebooks about science, with Carl Zimmer and a team of leading new-media science journalists.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Because Afghans have nothing more important to fret about
Feb 21st, 2012 9:28 am | By Ophelia BensonBecause Afghanistan is so peaceful and safe and prosperous, such a paradise of equality and freedom and happiness, people there have leisure to get wildly upset and furious when some books are accidentally sent to the incinerator in a consignment of waste paper.
… Read the restUS and Nato forces have rushed to apologise for discarding and possibly burning copies of the Qur’an, as thousands of furious Afghans gathered to protest outside Bagram military airbase.
Some carried ancient hunting rifles and others used slingshots to pelt the outer walls of the airbase with stones for several hours, despite the bitter cold, shouting “down with America” and other slogans.
The crowd swelled to as much as three thousand, and police stationed on roads leading
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Justin finds another consignment of atheist-bashing
Feb 20th, 2012 5:16 pm | By Ophelia BensonOne Reverend Bryan Griem, writing to the Pasadena Sun:
… Read the restLook, you just read the stats: “Researchers have found that spiritual people have decreased odds of attempting suicide, and that spiritual fitness has a positive impact on quality of life, on coping and on mental health.” Atheists be damned. They will be. So I really don’t care what they think regarding these tests. I’m tired of having their constant nagging, their constant opposition against God — their evil. They contribute nothing positive in the long run. Their very name, “a” theist, means they are “against,” with a big “no” regarding America’s “creator” and “Nature’s God” (the one mentioned in our Declaration of Independence). I’m frankly sick of them. Why they
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It’s only 50 thousand pounds
Feb 20th, 2012 10:57 am | By Ophelia BensonThose times when news stories read like stories from The Onion…
Like the BBC’s report of the MP who said “sorry” for not mentioning a financial interest while arguing for something that would do that financial interest a lot of good.
… Read the restConservative MP and ministerial aide Mark Simmonds has apologised for failing to make clear an interest when speaking in favour of the NHS shake-up…
The MPs’ register of interest shows he is paid £50,000 a year as a strategic adviser to Circle Healthcare.
Mr Simmonds told MPs he wanted to apologise for “inadvertently” failing to declare his interest.
He made his statement during a Point of Order. Although he had correctly declared his interest in the register of interests,
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MP apologises for failing to mention interest in health firm 
Feb 20th, 2012 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
I’m tho thorry, I forgot.… Read the rest
Up for a prize
Feb 20th, 2012 10:13 am | By Ophelia BensonGood morning girls and boys, it’s time for Monday’s entries in the “What Week-old Dead Fish Can We Throw at Richard Dawkins Today?” contest.
A big round of applause for Mary Ann Sieghart at The Independent, who wastes no time but gets to the vulgar abuse right out of the gate.
… Read the restThe Church of England couldn’t hope for a better enemy than Richard Dawkins. Puffed-up, self-regarding, vain, prickly and militant, he displays exactly the character traits that could do with some Christian mellowing. In fact, he’s almost an advertisement against atheism. You can’t help thinking that a few Sundays in the pews and the odd day volunteering in a Church-run soup kitchen might do him the power of good.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Indy spits its share of disgusting venom at Dawkins
Feb 20th, 2012 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
“Puffed-up, self-regarding, vain, prickly and militant, he displays exactly the character traits that could do with some Christian mellowing.”… Read the rest
Richard Dawkins in ‘single-celled ancestor’ shock
Feb 20th, 2012 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Prominent atheist Richard Dawkins has been hit by fresh scandal today after it emerged that his ancestors were single-celled organisms who metabolised sulphur.… Read the rest
In a couple of weeks
Feb 19th, 2012 5:44 pm | By Ophelia BensonMeanwhile…see that top banner in the right margin, the one above Rock Beyond Belief? Moving Secularism Forward? I’m a speaker at that. Orlando is kind of far away from everything except Florida, but I’m hoping some people will turn up anyway.
It’s a great lineup.
Daniel C. Dennett, Sir Harold Kroto, PZ Myers, Russell Blackford, Stephen Law, Rita Swan, Anthony Pinn, Victor Stenger, Elisabeth Cornwell, Eddie Tabash, Lionel Tiger, Ronald Bailey, Razib Khan, Jamila Bey, Sikivu Hutchinson, David Silverman, Bill Cooke, Steven K. Green, Ellenbeth Wachs, Ronald A. Lindsay, Debbie Goddard and Tom Flynn.
The following weekend I’m at QED in Manchester.
QED has a blog post about Maryam.… Read the rest
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And now for some good Twitter jokes
Feb 19th, 2012 11:14 am | By Ophelia BensonMartin Robbins@mjrobbins And here is The Telegraph’s Charles Moore in 2005 attacking Blair for apologizing for slavery http://tgr.ph/AeDOiu
plus
So according to the Telegraph, you shouldn’t hold guilt for your ancestors’ actions, unless you’re Richard Dawkins. Neat.
David Aaronovitch@DAaronovitch
The Telegraph attack on Dawkins for having slave-trading forebears two centuries back, is wonderfully bizarre. Mad, really.
plus
Information is invited on ancestral sins, going back three centuries, of Telegraph editors, sundry bishops and Tory politicians. #pastsins
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Re Telegraph outing of past Dawkins, I have to confess to being descended from Sir Darcy O’Ronovitch of the Hellfire Club, hanged in 1782.
Mr Roger Quimbly@RogerQuimbly
According to Richard Dawkins, the Sunday Telegraph is descended … Read the rest
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Look out, he’s got a whip
Feb 19th, 2012 10:35 am | By Ophelia BensonAnd last item on your exciting breakfast menu, all items with complimentary orange slice and sprig of mint, the Daily Mail on Dawkins as sekrit descendant of slaveowners.
Never mind, don’t get excited, it’s just the Telegraph article, reported. It does add one stupidity of its own though -
Equality groups are now calling on him to apologise for his family’s past.
Are they? Really? Groups, plural? Independently of reporters phoning them and asking for a quote? Can you name as many as one?
Plus they added an illustration.
captioned
Ancestors of Richard Dawkins are believed to have been linked to slavery
Filthy. They’re a filthy crew. We knew that, but it’s worth saying anyway.… Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Yemen: Tawakkul Karman gets death threat
Feb 19th, 2012 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The Nobel Peace laureate and pro-democracy activist received the threat in a short text message sent to her mobile phone demanding that she repent or face death.… Read the rest
Canadian government accused of “muzzling” its scientists
Feb 19th, 2012 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Speakers at a major science meeting in Canada said communication of vital research on health and environment issues is being suppressed.… Read the rest
Telegraph hit piece on Dawkins
Feb 19th, 2012 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
A new low in sleaze.… Read the rest
Argumentum ad haircut
Feb 19th, 2012 9:33 am | By Ophelia BensonThere’s a separate, unrelated hit piece on Dawkins in the Sunday Times, which I haven’t yet read because of the paywall, but a comment at RDF quotes from it, and that’s quite informative by itself.
… Read the restI’ve just been reading an article in today’s (19/02/12) Sunday Times By Camilla Long. It’s the front page of the News Review section and has a photo of Richard on the front page of the section. It really is the most appalling article. The very first sentence gives a flavour of how it will go, “Richard Dawkins has an extremely unfortunate face in that he always looks angry, even when he is quite calm.” I don’t know who she met, or if she has even
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The disgraceful Telegraph article on Dawkins
Feb 19th, 2012 9:03 am | By Ophelia BensonThe Telegraph hit piece on Dawkins is out (as many of you already know; it’s nearly 5 in the afternoon in the UK, while it’s only a fresh-faced nearly 9 in the morning here on the west coast of the US). It’s even worse than I expected it to be, and that’s saying something. It’s vicious slavering bullshit. It’s a disgrace to journalism.
He has railed against the evils of religion, and lectured the world on the virtues of atheism.
Now Richard Dawkins, the secularist campaigner against “intolerance and suffering”, must face an awkward revelation: he is descended from slave owners and his family estate was bought with a fortune partly created by forced labour.
It’s not “awkward.” We’re all … Read the rest
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And another one, and more, and more
Feb 18th, 2012 5:08 pm | By Ophelia BensonThis one also from the Telegraph, by someone called Stephen Bayley (by which I mean, as you may remember, that I haven’t heard of him before, not that he’s obscure or beneath my lofty notice). It has no content, it’s just a brief volley of abuse.
… Read the rest…Richard Dawkins, a fanatic disguised as a scientist. And surely, in the powerful counterproductive sway of his noisy arguments, proof of the existence of God? Terrible to awake in that groggy matutinal state when things lodge in your addled brain and hear shrill, ugly, cruel arguments on the radio. Atheists seem to be very good at dogma. Dawkins seems not to understand that his own zealotry is itself a sort of religious quest. And
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Telegraph does research, discovers that Dawkins has ancestors
Feb 18th, 2012 4:41 pm | By Ophelia BensonWell now that’s a new wrinkle – a Telegraph reporter phoning Dawkins to say, “Oi! Do you realize your ancestors owned slaves in Jamaica in the 18th century? What have you got to say to that? One was named Henry. They owned many slaves. Do you feel any guilt about it?” Then when Dawkins cuts the call short because it’s so stupid plus he has a lecture to prepare, the reporter phones back (despite having been dismissed, which seems quite ill-mannered) to say, “Natural selection has a lot to do with genes yeh? Well, some people might suggest that you could have inherited a gene for supporting slavery from Henry Dawkins.”
Did you ever? And that’s not even all of … Read the rest
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Beware the frumious bandersnatch
Feb 18th, 2012 10:13 am | By Ophelia BensonPolly Toynbee thinks secularism is not such a terrible idea. She’s not completely persuaded by claims that secularism is ruining all the things.
… Read the rest…the faiths are glad to circle their wagons round [the queen] against the unbelievers. Each has their own divinely revealed unique truth, often provoking mortal conflict, Muslim v Copt, Catholic v Protestant, Hindu v Muslim or Sunni v Shia. But suddenly the believers are united in defence against the secular, willing to suspend the supremacy of their own prophets to agree that any religion, however alien, from elephant god to son of God, is better than none.
They can all feel their victimhood now, facing what Baroness Warsi called a rising tide of “militant secularisation
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
So long
Feb 18th, 2012 9:23 am | By Ophelia BensonSeen on the UCL ASH page at Facebook:
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