Some things are even worse than colonialism – at least the people of northern Mali feel that way after months of being oppressed and tormented by Islamists. They wave Frech flags, they smile, they want the French to stay.

Mali was one of the most successful democracies in Africa until insurgents began trying to take it over.

Besides taking many lives, the insurgents have destroyed historic shrines in Timbuktu that date to the 15th century. The attackers say the shrines offend Sharia law.

Such allegations have spurred the International Criminal Court to launch a war-crimes investigation, its chief prosecutor announced Wednesday. Fatou Bensouda said Mali’s government asked the U.N. tribunal to investigate in July, after Islamists had taken control of

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Oh yes I forgot one of my favorite things from earlier today.

… Read the rest

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So, that was interesting. I collected the big bag of held mail yesterday, and sorted it, and found the latest Freethinker with my column in it, and the latest Free Inquiry with my column in it. Late in the evening I flung myself down to read the Free Inquiry – and was brought up short on the contents page. “Oh? Eh? Wha? Really? Er…uh oh.” Because why? Because

53 Response

A Guy Thing? Secularism, Feminism, and a Response to Ophelia Benson

Michael Shermer

Huh, I thought. Huh. But he already did respond. At some length. With considerable heat. With, in fact, quite a large helping of righteous indignation. With an air of “who is this woman to criticize something I … Read the rest

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Taking off yesterday from San Jose, we flew straight south at first. I know, it’s to do with the prevailing winds, but I kept wanting to shout “Hey! North! Seattle is north!”

But then we did the big turn to go the other way, and I had a window seat on the left side so I got a terrific view of Monterey Bay – the same view I’d had all morning from Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz, but from 30 miles away and higher up. I could see Point Pinos, where the Monterey peninsula turns the corner to Asilomar, right next to where I’d been staying. I could also see…the Santa Cruz wharf. That was a funny experience. It was … Read the rest

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A tech writer writes about a sexist piece of advertising.

What does that advertise? A voice-control company. So it’s not what you think! That picture is all about her voice! That finger in her mouth is just a finger! And it’s pointing at her voice. And she does have eyes and a top to her head, but that would be completely irrelevant to the message of the ad, which is about voice-control.

Sex sells, right? And disembodied female body parts coupled with Beavis and  Butt-head-level puns are super-sexy, right?

Guys, this is why we don’t have more women in tech: It’s a cesspool. As long  as we’re passing offensive schlock like this off as marketing for a major  technology

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Via the genius at Gnu Atheism on Facebook.

… Read the rest

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A cleric does the “god is complicated” dance, with a large helping of “I’m more sophisticated than they are” thrown in. A doorstep fella asked him if he’d found God yet. Oh how vulgar.

It was the formulation of his question that raised my hackles. It implied that God was a comprehensible being awaiting discovery. Scratch the surface of existence persistently enough and he will be revealed.

Well yes. That would be because people like you are always talking about god – talking about god is your profession! – so it’s really not all that strange that people think you mean something by it. You treat it as a name, so people hear it as a name.

If god … Read the rest

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I don’t think I was aware of Alisa Valdes before. She wrote a memoir, The Feminist and the Cowboy: an Unlikely Romance. Sounds potentially good, in a way – she teaches him to understand that women aren’t lesser beings, he teaches her to appreciate horses and bad coffee. Culture clash made fun; meeting cute; oddly-matched couple models the potential for mutual broadening of horizons.

Yes but that’s not the plot. The plot is that she

falls in love with a cowboy who teaches her to reconnect with her “femininity” — and to never talk back, open her own car door or walk on the street side of the sidewalk.

Erm. That’s not a good plot. I dislike that … Read the rest

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Greetings from San Jose airport. Flight delayed half an hour.

I just had a brilliant time in Santa Cruz, which I’d visited or crossed a few times before but never properly explored. This time I managed to stumble on some of the good things to see. What a town! First I stumbled on the municipal wharf, and walked out on it a little distance and admired the gaudy Seaside Attraction stuff off to one side, and also admired the gaudy Victorian house at the top of a hill off to the other side. I went to check out the Victorian house first – it’s an inn – and that took me to the road that goes along the cliff above … Read the rest

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The Ottawa Citizen asks its religious experts about the Newtown shootings. Kevin Smith says something I really like. [scroll down]

They say He’s been banished from schools — He being the creator of the  universe, the loving, omnipotent father possessed with a tendency toward  occasional vengeance if he’s not worshipped every day. That is the sole reason  for the murders, they repeat, as much to convince themselves as for others who  must rationalize the irrational.

How cruel to the grieving families that these self-serving defenders of their faith dare make excuses for a God who doesn’t care, or who is not there. He is  never anywhere.

Really. God is never anywhere. Why isn’t that a demerit? Why don’t … Read the rest

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Last sunset over the Pacific for awhile. (I’m leaving tomorrow.) Nice that it was a spectacular day and evening.

I haven’t seen any sea otters in years though. That’s no good. I used to see lots.

Ceci n’est pas un blog post. It’s just a little diary notation.… Read the rest

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I’m reading Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow. It begins amusingly with his telling us how he and Amos Tversky discovered – during a seminar of Kahneman’s at which Tversky was a guest speaker, their first collaboration – that even statisticians are bad at intuitive statistics.

He tells us about the resemblance heuristic, and starts with a question.

As you consider the next question, please assume that Steve was selected at random from a representative sample:

An individual has been described by a neighbor as follows: “Steve is very shy and withdrawn, invariably helpful but with little interest in people or the world of reality. A meek and tidy soul, he has a need for order and structure, and

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