Andy Borowitz asks.

a consortium of billionaires today warned that if their taxes are raised they will no longer have enough money to buy politicians.

The group, led by casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, commissioned a new study showing that the cost of an average politician has soared exponentially over the past decade.

While the American family has seen increases in the cost of food, health care and education, Mr. Adelson says, “those costs don’t compare with the cost of  buying a politician, which has gone through the roof.”

That is very worrying. Food, health care, education and housing are all luxuries, of course, but the ability for billionaires to afford to buy politicians is non-optional.

Plus think of all … Read the rest

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

So there’s Anita Sarkeesian’s TEDxWomen talk on online harassment and cybermobs.

Gee I don’t know why I would be interested in that…

Now, I’m a pop culture critic, I’m a feminist and I’m a woman. And I’m all of these things, openly, on the internet so I’m no stranger to some level of sexist backlash. I’ve sadly gotten used to sexist slurs, and sexist insults, usually involving kitchens and sandwiches…

But what happened this time was a little bit different. I found myself the target of a massive online hate campaign.

Gee I wonder what that’s like…

What’s even more disturbing, if that’s even possible, than this overt display of misogyny on a grand scale, is that the perpetrators openly

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

Martin Robbins has some blunt things to say about genital mutilation.

Infant circumcision involves performing surgery without consent to permanently alter an individual’s genitals. In many cases this is done without good medical justification, for example to force the infant to conform to the expectations of a particular religion. Just as we call sex without consent ‘rape’, circumcision without consent or reasonable justification should be called ‘mutilation’.

Yes but religion. Respect. Tradition.

Physical merits and demerits aside, infant circumcision has had a profound psychological impact on many men.  “I can’t get it out of my mind how I have been mutilated against my will,” reads one testimony on the website of the charity Norm UK

I spoke to several circumcised

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A news item from India.

In the first honour killing in Kolkata in decades, a 29-year-old youth dragged his sister out on the street and cut off her head with one stroke of the sword in Ayubnagar locality of Nadial, barely 13km from the city centre, on Friday.

Scores of residents looked on in horror as Mehtab Alam walked to a police station with the head in his left hand and the sword in his right, dripping blood all along the way.

We know the rest without looking. She had sex with someone, or her brother thought she had sex with someone, or the brother thought the neighbors might think she had sex with someone, or the brother thought … Read the rest

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

It’s not just Ireland, it’s not just Saudi Arabia, it’s not just Pakistan. It’s New York City, too. The New York Times sets the scene.

The abuse began when the girl was 12 years old, prosecutors in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn said on Monday. She was sent to a prominent man in her ultra-Orthodox Jewish community for counseling, and prosecutors said the man sexually molested her over the next three years.

But lawyers defending the man, Nechemya Weberman, 54, of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, told a far different story during the opening arguments of his trial. The girl, a defense lawyer told the jury, had hatched the sordid tale of abuse as an act of revenge against Mr. Weberman

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

Martin comments on Chris Clarke’s post:

These last two threads have put me in mind of Tim Minchin’s lovely “Pope Song,” which includes the lyrics…

If you cover for another motherfucker who’s a kiddie fucker Fuck you you’re no better then the mother fucking rapist

…and then I wonder how many of these dudes showing up here to complain that it’s so unfair to draw moral equivalency between everyday, blogging, comment-trolling, rape-threat-making-on-Reddit misogynists and mass-murdering-IRL misogynists are huge fans of that song.

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

Via @EverydaySexism via @Cheesyhel – a cheery little birthday card for a girl turning 13 -

 Update – the good news is that it’s apparently old stock. The bad news is that Cheesyhel just saw it in a local newsagents in her town.

Update 2 -

The image is a card, with “You’re 13 today!” at the top and a cartoon picture of a girl beaming with surprise and pleasure at a box with a ring in it. In smaller writing that winds down the page it says

If you had a rich  boyfriend

he’d give you diamonds and rubies

Well maybe next year you will  -

when you’ve bigger boobies!… Read the rest

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

And speaking of “dissent” and “disagreement” and “people who do not share your opinion” – speaking of calling sustained frothing hatemongering “dissent” and “disagreement” and “people who do not share your opinion” – that’s all over a thread of PZ’s on the Montreal Massacre.

PZ made the point that the Montreal Massacre was a very overt example of misogyny. He made the related point that misogyny has consequences. Misogynists came along at a dead run to protest the outrage of saying that misogyny has consequences. There was a lot of bullshit about “dissent” and “disagreement” and “people who do not share your opinion” as cozy ways of describing sustained frothing misogyny. From Al Stefanelli for instance…

Al Stefanelli

Are

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