You know that thing where you make a point, and it gets ignored, and then a guy makes the same point – (yes, “you” are a woman in this particular that thing) and the guy you were talking to is all “good point, dude, thanks, I totally get it now”?

That.

Stephanie summed it up in a tweet. (One of the virtues of tweets, innit. Summing up.)

Nothing like watching a male colleague be thanked for making the point I’d just made in a different form. Especially when talking sexism.

Ayup.

 … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

The Ottawa Citizen reports -

OTTAWA – An evangelical organization that describes homosexuality as a  “perversion” and a “sin” is receiving funding from the Government of Canada for its work in Uganda, where gays and lesbians face severe threats.

Well that seems like bad planning. The funding is for unrelated activities, but the government of Canada should find non-homophobic organizations to fund for unrelated activities.

The federal government has denounced virulent homophobia in that East African  country and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird has condemned plans for an  anti-gay bill that could potentially include the death penalty for  homosexuals.

At the same time the government is providing $544,813 in funding for  Crossroads Christian Communications — an Ontario-based evangelical group that 

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Good old NPR, always middlebrow to a fault. Talk about atheism and religion? Well you know what will be said, because NPR wouldn’t allow anything else to be said.

Sometimes the debate between atheism and religion can be enlightening, showing us how both of these different approaches dive deeply into the currents of human experience. Sometimes, however, it can be deeply depressing, devolving into hard lines and acrimony. As an atheist, I often find myself exasperated with what I call “strident atheism.”

The banality, it…well it doesn’t burn. It stifles with fuzzy fluffiness. Atheism and religion are “approaches,” which are different but not more or less accurate. They are approaches that dive (how can an approach dive?) “deeply into … Read the rest

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Private medical records. Photos taken on the roof of a parking garage. Ultrasound. About as invasive as it could get.

H/t Stuart F Taylor.… Read the rest

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[inarticulate scream of rage and disgust]

PZ tells us what a Saudi father – a “religious scholar” – did to his five-year-old daughter. Read it, if you can bear horrors.

Maryam tells us too.

The father had to pay a little blood money. That’s all. Half the blood money he would have had to pay if Lama had been a boy. (But if Lama had been a boy he wouldn’t have done what he did to her.)

I know heinous child abuse, rape and torture occurs everywhere. I’ve heard some of the worst cases right here in Britain. But it is only under Sharia (and religious laws) that there is always some Islamic justification for leniency or for blaming the

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You know that trope about the expansion of or meaning-shift in the word “misogyny”? The one that says it’s being used to mean the same thing as sexism? I don’t use it that way, but I’ve found an example that, I think, does.

It’s a petition to the White House asking the Obama administration to

Stop using the “wives, mothers, & daughters” rhetorical frame that defines women by their relationships to other people.

The petition is hopeless of course, but it’s a good point. But I think the word “misogyny” doesn’t belong.

In his 2013 State of the Union address, President Obama said: “We know our economy is stronger when our wives, mothers, and daughters can live their lives free

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The US Senate has renewed the Violence Against Women Act, 78 to 22. (It’s odd that I’m pleased about the 78 rather than appalled by the 22. Low expectations strike again.)

The act expired in 2011, putting efforts to improve its many federal programs on hold. Last year both the Republican-led House and the Democratic-controlled Senate passed renewal bills, but they were unable to reach a compromise.

This year House Republicans, sensitive to their lackluster showing among women voters in the November election, have vowed to move expeditiously on the issue. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., has taken the lead in negotiating the terms of a House bill.

So…”Ok, bitchez, if you’re going to get all bitchy about … Read the rest

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Atheist leans over backward to find something contrarian to say about religion because of finding Dawkins too simplistic on the subject. Douglas Murray, in The Spectator. (It sounds like something piping hot and fresh from 2009, but oh well.)

These new atheists remain incapable of getting beyond the question, ‘Is it true?’ They assume that by ‘true’ we agree them to mean ‘literally true’. They also assume that if the answer is ‘no’, then that closes everything. But it does not. Just because something is not literally true does not mean that there is no truth, or worth, in it.

Schopenhauer said that truth may be like water: it needs a vessel to carry it. It is all very

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Michael Nugent gives ten reasons to be pleased that Ratzinger is hanging up his red shoes.

One, because of the Vatican’s (ridiculous) international clout.

Because the UN takes most decisions by consensus, the Holy See has been able to frustrate negotiations on population, contraception, reproductive health care and women’s rights. And Pope Benedict has ensured that the Holy See’s work at the United Nations is based on his own conservative theology.

Four, his church claims that atheists are not fully human.

The Catholic Church makes a distinction between being human and being fully human, and it does not consider atheists to be fully human. It believes that being fully human requires a relationship with its imaginary God, and that

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Update I didn’t even see that there’s also a post on AVoiceforMen. I can’t keep up. I have so many fans haters now I cannot keep up.

He also says I’m a fassist Stalinist thug. He says a lot of things. He pronounces “fascist” as “fassist.” I’m a fassist Stalinist hate-mongering bigoted book-burning censoring thug.

The book burners of the world and the censors of the world, the crypto-fassists and the outright fassists of the world, they just never go away, do they.

Wussup? we wonder as we listen. Wussup is that “Wooly” Bumblebee did a video and then got banned from YouTube.

What was so outrageous? She was critical of a public figure. That’s right, a public figure.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)