I had an interesting Twitter conversation with Dave Silverman yesterday, which continued with other people later. It was about the recurring subject of having an all-inclusive political movement on the one hand, and standing by certain values or commitments on the other hand.

Dave obviously has to lean heavily toward the former, because that’s his job. The atheism comes first, by a long way, and everything else comes second. But does everything else come nowhere? I don’t think so. I think there are limits. I don’t think Dave would welcome the KKK or the American Nazi Party as allies, for instance. Just for one thing, accepting them as allies would mean the loss of a lot of other allies, … Read the rest

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The Texas Education Agency is meeting, and the creationists are pushing harder than ever. The Texas Freedom Network reports:

“Any statements made were my own personal beliefs.”

That’s how Karen Beathard, an official state textbook reviewer, defends telling publishers that the biology textbooks they submitted for adoption in Texas this year should include “creation science based on biblical principles.”

Her statement encapsulates precisely the problem with the science textbook adoption process in Texas. Some State Board of Education (SBOE) members decided to nominate reviewers based on their personal beliefs, not their qualifications or expertise. And because they did so, SBOE members have undermined public confidence that the review process was anything but a sham.

Ms. Beathard, a dietician/nutritionist, has every

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Mike Booth recommended this on Twitter, so I will pay it forward.

Minneapolis. A woman with her arms full of paperwork waiting for the lightrail. A man in an SUV.

So, that’s where we were. Me, minding my own business. You, apparently observing my ass. At that point you had options. You could have driven past me and said nothing. You could have turned up your radio and waved, ensconcing us in some beats and camaraderie. You could have shouted out, “Happy Friday! Yeehaw!” Any of those options would have been great. I probably would have waved, smiled, and started my weekend on the same high note as you.

Instead, you chose the most pathetic option available to you:

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Respect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4Rjy5yW1gQ

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Bjarte Foshaug on Facebook:

… Read the rest

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Normal service has been restored. We apologize for the inconvenience. Your commentary is appreciated. Please hold. Your call will be answered in the order it was received. Thank you for flying with us and we look forward to seeing you again soon.… Read the rest

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You know what’s really scary? Antibiotic resistance. The CDC says how scary.

The agency’s overall — and, it stressed, conservative — assessment of the problem:

• Each year, in the U.S., 2,049,442 illnesses caused by bacteria and fungi that are resistant to at least some classes of antibiotics;
• Each year, out of those illnesses, 23,000 deaths;
• Because of those illnesses and deaths, $20 billion each year in additional healthcare spending;
• And beyond the direct healthcare costs, an additional $35 billion lost to society in foregone productivity.

“If we are not careful, we will soon be in a post-antibiotic era,” Dr. Tom Frieden, the CDC’s director, said in a media briefing. “And for some patients and for some microbes, we are

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It turns out that God’s a comedian. Holy water is full of shit.

Despite its purported cleansing properties, holy water could actually be more harmful than healing, according to a new Austrian study on “holy” springs.

Researchers at the Institute of Hygiene and Applied Immunology at the Medical University of Vienna tested water from 21 springs in Austria and 18 fonts in Vienna and found samples contained up to 62 million bacteria per milliliter of water, none of it safe to drink.

Tests indicated 86 percent of the holy water, commonly used in baptism ceremonies and to wet congregants’ lips, was infected with common bacteria found in fecal matter such as E. coli, enterococci and Campylobacter, which can lead to

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Matt Yglesias points out that misogyny is not actually a necessary ingredient for cooking up a batch of innovation.

Former Business Insider CTO Pax Dickinson offers some further reflections on the question of women in technology:

I think the tech world is just kind of—it doesn’t have a woman problem. Women in tech are great. There’s just not that many of them because tech is just a kind of thing that a lot of women aren’t that interested in, I think. I mean, I don’t think it has a problem. I’d worry more about taking away what makes tech great. The freewheeling nature of it is what leads to innovation. And my fear is that if we’re all going to

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A defense lawyer in the Delhi gang rape case made some remarks that could get him disbarred.

Mr Singh caused shock saying he would have “burned my daughter alive” if she was
having “premarital sex and went out late at night with her boyfriend”.

He told the BBC on Monday his personal views had been taken out of context.

“I was asked about my views on a personal matter and I answered that in my personal capacity of being the patriarch of my house,” he told the BBC.

Ah yes, and this is why some of us are not all that fond of patriarchy.

 … Read the rest

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Jesus and Grumpy Cat.

… Read the rest

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An Irish university student goes on the pill. She tells her mother; her mother is fine with it. Then she goes home to the west of Ireland, and has to renew her prescription. Her local GP is not so fine with it. He asks her a lot of impertinent questions and gives her a lot of unwanted advice.

This horrible catholic guilt regarding our own sexuality still festers in the more rural parts of Ireland.  It makes me furious that the general psyche of our nation would accept that a doctor reserves the right not to administer this drug. I had done three courses of the pill, I was well aware of the risks and consequences and I am

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Rupa Jha talks about sexual abuse at home as opposed to out in the streets or on the buses.

She lived in a huge family in a two bedroom flat.

Distant relatives and cousins kept coming and going through the family home.
Being the youngest girl in the family, I was “loved” by them.

These love sessions would happen only when I was alone with one of them.

I hated it but, like many others in the same situation, I was too petrified to talk about it.

Getting rubbed, touched, kissed or being locked in bathrooms was the “love”.

Even though the house was always full, I felt completely lonely and violated.

One day when she was about ten she … Read the rest

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This again. In Sudan, a woman is threatened with flogging for refusing to wear hijab.

Can we please never again hear from anyone saying that wearing hijab is a choice?

Amira Osman Hamed faces a possible whipping if convicted at a trial which could come on September 19. Under Sudanese law, her hair – and that of all women – is supposed to be covered with a “hijab”, but Hamed refuses.

Ruby Hamad comments on the trend.

As mainstream Islam grows increasingly conservative, there is no doubt that the situation for many Muslim women, both in Sudan and elsewhere is deteriorating. Indonesia, for example, a once “moderate” country which has also been cracking down on women’s dress in recently years,

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A month ago Steven Pinker had a long article in The New Republic in praise of ”scientism.” One part I particularly like:

In  which ways, then, does science illuminate human affairs? Let me start with the most ambitious: the deepest questions about who we are, where we came from, and how we define the meaning and purpose of our lives. This is the traditional territory of religion, and its defenders tend to be the most excitable critics of scientism. They are apt to endorse the partition plan proposed by Stephen Jay Gould in his worst book, Rocks of Ages, according to which the proper concerns of science and religion belong to “non-overlapping magisteria.” Science gets the empirical universe;

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Did you know that one of the members of ABBA is a pillar of the secularist-humanist community in Sweden? I did. Sven Grundberg tells about it for a Wall Street Journal blog.

STOCKHOLM – Björn Ulvaeus, one of the two Bs in ABBA, sat down with Speakeasy on a sunny summer day in central Stockholm at a hipster coffee shop. The joint is located just around the corner from the capital’s buzzing club scene that has hatched several global music wonders in recent years, including Swedish House Mafia and Avicii.

Sweden has long played an outsized role in the global music industry, providing a host of songwriters, producers, technological innovations and successful performers.

A solid musical education

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