Mano has a great post on the strange disdain for bloggers.

I move in circles (socially and at work) where people tend to be politically interested but surprisingly ignorant of many facts. I blame it on the fact that they spend far too much time following a few big name sources of TV and print news that they think are comprehensive and giving them the full picture, but in fact are very narrow. When I discuss politics with them and point out all manner of things that they do not know, they sometimes ask me how I get information that they were unaware of. I tell them that I read a lot of blogs that monitor a wide range

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Aw, damn, those oppressive bureaucrats in China are really oppressive – now they’re six years ago they started saying monks have to get government permission before they can reincarnate! That’s just mean.

China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is “an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation.”

It’s an interesting notion, “the procedures by which one is to reincarnate” – what would those be, do you suppose? And how do you know you’ve performed them, and how do you know you’ve performed them … Read the rest

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I should start a category here, called Twitter Over-reaching or Trying to Say Too Much in a Tweet or Twitter Is Not the Place for Grand Generalizations, or something. Because I keep seeing people doing that, and it can be funny or pathetic or destructive or all those.

The latest one that I’ve noticed is by Peter Boghossian. It’s not part of a larger conversation, the previous and following tweets aren’t related, so it really is meant to stand alone and say something true.

Attempts to engineer social justice will be unfair if they target equality of outcome as opposed to equality of opportunity.

He’s a philosopher and I’m not, but that just looks silly to me. Attempts will … Read the rest

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God damn John Scalzi is good.

Yesterday: To The Dudebro Who Thinks He’s Insulting Me by Calling Me a Feminist

Just read it. I don’t want to spoil it with appetizers or remarks; just read it.

But I’ll give you a visual appetizer.

I’ve always wondered what that pleasant sweep of green at the top of his blog was, and vaguely assumed it was a nearby park. It’s his fucking front lawn. That plays a part, and gets its own meme, so read. Read read read.… Read the rest

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As you may have already seen, Avicenna was falsely accused of raping someone at TAM 2013. He’s never been to TAM; he hasn’t been in the US for several years. He is not much pleased.

Turns out Mr. [Richard] Sanderson is a possible suspect in the fake accusation that I raped/molested someone at TAM 2013. Why? Because when I admitted publically about the accusation, I also pointed out that I had an alibi. Oh if you wish to know why I admitted to it, I felt the need to be honest because I figured that if I didn’t admit to it, someone would drop it on me as a “surprise” and I would rather do it myself. Bear in

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The Annals of Irrational Fear, GMO Division. The New York Times reports:

ONE bright morning this month, 400 protesters smashed down the high fences surrounding a field in the Bicol region of the Philippines and uprooted the genetically modified rice plants growing inside.

Had the plants survived long enough to flower, they would have betrayed a distinctly yellow tint in the otherwise white part of the grain. That is because the rice is endowed with a gene from corn and another from a bacterium, making it the only variety in existence to produce beta carotene, the source of vitamin A. Its developers call it “Golden Rice.”

FrankenFoods. Playing god. It ain’t natural. Yuck.

Not owned by any company, Golden

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MSF reports neurotoxic symptoms in hospital patients in Syria, according to the BBC.

Medecins Sans Frontieres says hospitals it supports in Syria treated about 3,600 patients with “neurotoxic symptoms”, of whom 355 have died.

The medical charity said the patients had arrived in three hospitals in the Damascus area on 21 August – when opposition activists say chemical attacks were launched against rebels.

But MSF says it cannot “scientifically confirm” the use of chemical weapons.

Scientific uncertainty.

“MSF can neither scientifically confirm the cause of these symptoms nor establish who is responsible for the attack,” said MSF Director of Operations Bart Janssens.

But it added that the symptoms, as well as the “massive influx of patients in a short

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So having mentioned the Sourland mountains (and laughed at their diminutive size) I looked them up, half thinking it might be just a family name for that tiny rise on the western horizon – but no, it’s a real thing. Sourland Mountain.

Sourland Mountain is a 17 miles (27 km) long ridge in central New Jersey, extending from the Delaware River at Lambertville to the western end of Hillsborough Township near the community of Neshanic, through Montgomery Township and into Hopewell Township in Mercer County.^[1] It comprises the largest contiguous forest in Central Jersey, nearly 90 square miles (233 km²) in area. The highest point is only 568 feet (173 m) above sea

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It’s always a guy with three or four or six wives. Why not the other way around for a change? Well, in Kenya, three people have chosen that option.

Two Kenyan men have signed an agreement to “marry” the same woman.

The woman had been having affairs with both men for more than four years and apparently refused to choose between them.

The agreement sets out a rota for Sylvester Mwendwa and Elijah Kimani to stay in her house and states they will both help raise any children she bears.

It sounds very sensible.

 … Read the rest

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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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