There’s another thing about Romney’s chuckle chuckle notpology.

“Back in high school, I did some dumb things, and if anybody was hurt by that or offended, obviously I apologize for that,” Romney said in a live radio interview with Fox News Channel personality Brian Kilmeade.

Here’s what the other thing is about that. He was responding to the Washington Post article, so he knew what he was notpologizing for – he knew that it was for collecting at least five other senior boys to attack a junior boy, hold him down while he screamed for help, and cut off his hair.

Yet his response is to say “if anybody was hurt by that or offended, obviously I apologize … Read the rest

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

Obama seems to be hoping Afghan women will just fade into the background now.

Obama’s lack of overt attention to Afghan women has led many to fear their hard-fought gains will slip away as the United States hands off security responsibility to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, with ever-present Taliban leaders still holding sway in much of the countryside.

Women’s issues are not on the formal agenda at the NATO summit the United States will be hosting in Chicago later this month. Afghanistan is poised to send an all-male delegation.

Suzanne Nossel, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said it was “really worrying” that Obama only made a passing reference to women on his trip to Afghanistan last week, when he

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

And speaking of people getting all up in your face – there’s also the hot fashion for saying people who insult Mo should be killed. For once an official body is taking that seriously as what it obviously is: incitement to murder.

A British TV channel that broadcast a talk saying it is acceptable to murder someone who has shown disrespect to the prophet Muhammad is facing a heavy fine or potential closure by Ofcom.

…

The media regulator commissioned two English translations of the programme which revealed that the presenter of the show said: “If someone takes a step in the love of the Prophet, then this is not terrorism.” He also made a number of comments citing a

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

Is it a free speech issue or a right not to be proselytized against your will issue?

Is there a difference?

Not really; it’s more that the two are in tension. People have a right to proselytize, but they also have a right to refuse to be proselytized. What do you do when the two clash?

Or, more pertinently, maybe you think people don’t have a right to refuse to be proselytized. But I mean actively proselytized as opposed to passively. No, people don’t have a right to obliterate all sources of proselytization, but yes, they have a right to tell other people to stop pestering them.

The Nova Scotia student who was suspended for wearing a T shirt saying … Read the rest

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

Right. Romney looks back on his high school “pranks”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urjn5CjVbak

He chuckles a good deal, in a “we all know this is no big deal” way.

He does the classic notpology – “if anyone was offended or hurt by that” then he’s totes sorry but they’re obviously oversensitive.

Hey the guy was closeted! So obviously he Romney had no idea.

You know how boys are. [indulgent chuckle]

 … Read the rest

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

What about Mitt Romney and his fun-loving ways at prep school? What about that time he rallied a bunch of fellow seniors to tackle a junior, hold him down, and cut his hair off?

John Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.

“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemann’s recollection. Mitt, the teenage son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Lauber’s look, Friedemann recalled.

A

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

Strange but true.

An Iranian cartoonist has been sentenced to 25 lashes for a caricature of a local MP, the semi-official Ilna news agency has reported.

Ahmad Lotfi Ashtiani, MP for Arak, took offence to a cartoon published in Nameye Amir, a city newspaper in Arak.

 What can one say? When one is familiar with the principle that the people are allowed to criticize people such as employers and monarchs and MPs, what can one say about a cartoonist being sentenced to whipping for a mild cartoon like the above?

Shokraye was subsequently sued by the MP for having insulted him. A court in Markazi province, of which Arak is the capital, sentenced the cartoonist to 25 lashes – an

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

We’ve had it wrong all this time – it’s not women who are kept down and held back and put in their place, it’s men. And it’s not just anonymous ranters on Reddit who say so, either.

In The Second Sexism, shortly to be published in the UK, David Benatar, head of the philosophy department at Cape Town University, argues that “more boys drop out of school, fewer men earn degrees, more men die younger, more are incarcerated” and that the issue is so under-researched it has become the prejudice that dare not speak its name.

“It’s a neglected form of sexism,” Benatar says in a telephone interview. “It’s true that in the developed world the majority of

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

On the one hand, yes, religion as mostly practiced and interpreted now is illiberal and intolerant and sucky, but on the other hand, it always could be fluffier and nicer, if people would only.

But they won’t, so what’s the point of saying that?

Oh, you know…it fills the time. It’s not as hazardous as snowboarding. It’s easy.

Christianity, Islam and the other world faiths shouldn’t be completely disregarded. Many of the ethics they teach – and the faith, and in turn, the security which they offer believers – are far too valuable to ignore; what needs to change is our understanding. It is up to the intellectual religious leaders, who have the ability to engage with the intelligent as

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

Four men in Iran are due to be hanged very soon – as in, any time now – as their sentence has been approved by a hight court.

According to HRANA and JOOPEA, these four men will be hanged for sodomy according Shari’a law.

…

London based Iranian Human Rights Lawyer, Mehri Jafari said: ‘I am horrified and saddened to have heard the news about these four men. Not only with regards to the execution which is about to take place, but the fact that is beyond our control.

‘There are two important issues in this case; the location of the alleged occurrence and the interpretation of the Sharia’ law that a Hodud (strict Sharia punishment) is [im]minent.  Kohgiluyeh

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

Richard Carrier has a great extended interview with Susan Haack.

One sample:

But I’m also sure that many of the “difficulties and annoyances” of my life in philosophy have arisen, not simply because I’m a woman, but because of other characteristics of mine—though I suspect people find some of these particularly hard to take in a woman. For one thing, I’m very independent: rather than follow philosophical fads and fashions, I pursue questions I believe are important, and tackle them in the ways that seem most likely to yield results; I am beholden to no clique or citation cartel; I put no stock in the ranking of philosophy graduate programs over which my colleagues obsess; I accept no research

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