Alex Gabriel has an excellent, thorough, detailed, courteous reply to Paula Kirby.

He makes an important point at the beginning that has been steadfastly ignored both by Paula and by many of her supporters in this dispute.

I know that, as I think your letter hints, feminist skeptics including at FreethoughtBlogs have disagreed with you before and may have been barbed. But I’d like to point out those comments were always qualified: PZ said FtB was criticised ‘by no less a person than Paula Kirby’; Rebecca Watson referred to ‘the esteemed Paula Kirby’; Ophelia, on the idea FtB was totalitarian, said ‘the sad thing is that it’s Paula Kirby calling us that’. I typically make

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I gather (via Twitter) that Pamela Gay gave a great, standing ovation talk at TAM just now.

Pamela Gay just gave a talk highlighting the sexual harrassment in the skeptic community and called out for change! #TAM2012

Thank you @starstryder for tackling the harassment issue head-on at the #tam2012 podium, elegantly, eloquently, & w/many other great ideas!

@starstryder Thank you x a million. I wondered if anyone would say it. You knocked it out of the park. #TAM2012

Thank you, @starstryder!! That was exactly what #tam2012 needed and you were exactly the woman to do it. Inspiring.

@starstryder knocked it out of the park. Smart, measured and impassioned decimation of the

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I was flicking idly through the channels yesterday evening and I hit the Comedy Channel just as Tosh.0 was starting. I’d never seen it, never had a thought about it before the other day, but given the other day, I decided to have a look, see what he’s like overall, when not raging at a woman who interrupted his act. I think I managed less than two minutes. It was shitty sneery let’s hate everyone stuff, and then he asked, “when is it ok to make fun of the handicapped?” and a bit of video played while he shouted “Now! Now!” and everybody laughed, and bang I changed the channel.

That was quick. He makes it way obvious what … Read the rest

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Michael Nugent reports that Alex Aan has sent a message to his supporters, saying that their our support helps him, that he would feel alone without it. He also says that

Atheist Alliance International is very active on this issue, and will forward messages of support to Alex if you email info [at] atheistalliance [dot] org with “Message for Alex” in the subject line.

So I rushed to do that, and you should too.

 … Read the rest

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