CFI has a statement on the Charlie Hebdo murders.

In response to the murders of journalists at the French magazine Charlie Hebdo by terrorists in Paris today, Center for Inquiry president and CEO Ronald A. Lindsay issued this statement:

We are heartbroken by the unthinkable and cowardly attack at the magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris today, and outraged that such a barbaric act was a response to journalists and satirists exercising their right to free expression.

As publishers of Free Inquiry, the first (and for some time, the only) U.S. publication willing to publish the cartoons of Muhammad that sparked riots in 2005 after they appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, we stand in resolute solidarity with the people of Charlie Hebdo, and all those writers, thinkers, and satirists who know that no idea or individual ought to be immune from criticism, and have the courage to point out the flaws and fallacies of even the most deeply-held beliefs.

As a show of support for free expression and the staff of Charlie Hebdo, CFI plans to prominently display on our website (http://www.centerforinquiry.net) the cartoon of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi that apparently was one of the motivations for the attack. We will not be cowed by the savagery of those few who would like to see the world dragged back to the Dark Ages, who will kill to protect their backward ideologies from criticism, and we will continue to fight for the right of all people to dissent, to satirize, and to freely speak their minds.

The original Free Inquiry article with the Muhammed cartoons is available at bit.ly/CFIDanishCartoon

The Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi cartoon is on the main page.

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

Bonjour.

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

The BBC reports:

Gunmen have shot dead 12 people at the Paris office of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in an apparent militant Islamist attack.

Four of the magazine’s well-known cartoonists, including its editor, were among those killed, as well as two police officers.

This is a fucking disaster.

Witnesses said they heard the gunmen shouting “We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad” and “God is Great” in Arabic (“Allahu Akbar”).

The number of attackers was initially reported to be two, but French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve later said security services were hunting three “criminals”. He said that Paris had been placed on the highest alert.

Footage taken from a rooftop in Paris shows two gunmen firing shots
Charlie Hebdo editor Stephane Charbonnier, 47, had received death threats in the past and was living under police protection.

French media have named the three other cartoonists killed in the attack as Cabu, Tignous and Wolinski, as well as Charlie Hebdo contributor and French economist Bernard Maris.

The attack took place during the magazine’s daily editorial meeting.

At least four people were critically wounded in the attack.

The satirical weekly has courted controversy in the past with its irreverent take on news and current affairs. It was firebombed in November 2011 a day after it carried a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad.

It didn’t “court controversy” you cowardly assholes.

We’re all fucking doomed.

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

NPR did this piece on AA last March but I’m not sure I saw it then, and if I did I forgot about it, so I’m looking at it either again or for the first time.

The punchline? For 90% of people who try it, it fails.

AA and the many 12-step groups it inspired have become the country’s go-to solution for addiction in all of its forms. These recovery programs are mandated by drug courts, prescribed by doctors and widely praised by reformed addicts.

Dr. Lance Dodes sees a big problem with that. The psychiatrist has spent more than 20 years studying and treating addiction. His latest book on the subject is The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry.

Dodes tells NPR’s Arun Rath that 12-step recovery simply doesn’t work, despite anecdotes about success.

Because guess what: we don’t hear the anecdotes about failure.

There is a large body of evidence now looking at AA success rate, and the success rate of AA is between 5 and 10 percent. Most people don’t seem to know that because it’s not widely publicized. … There are some studies that have claimed to show scientifically that AA is useful. These studies are riddled with scientific errors and they say no more than what we knew to begin with, which is that AA has probably the worst success rate in all of medicine.

It’s not only that AA has a 5 to 10 percent success rate; if it was successful and was neutral the rest of the time, we’d say OK. But it’s harmful to the 90 percent who don’t do well. And it’s harmful for several important reasons. One of them is that everyone believes that AA is the right treatment. AA is never wrong, according to AA. If you fail in AA, it’s you that’s failed.

So that’s crap for morale, self-respect, hope – lots of things. Bad news.

The reason that the 5 to 10 percent do well in AA actually doesn’t have to do with the 12 steps themselves; it has to do with the camaraderie. It’s a supportive organization with people who are on the whole kind to you, and it gives you a structure. Some people can make a lot of use of that. And to its credit, AA describes itself as a brotherhood rather than a treatment.

So as you can imagine, a few people given that kind of setting are able to change their behavior at least temporarily, maybe permanently. But most people can’t deal with their addiction, which is deeply driven, by just being in a brotherhood.

And it’s a terrible shame that AA has such a great reputation; it’s tragic that most people think it does work, and that courts tell addicts to go there.

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

From Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature, chapter 8, Inner Demons, section on dominance:

The psychologists Jim Sidanius and Felicia Pratto have proposed that people, to varying degrees, harbor a motive they call social dominance, though a more intuitive term is tribalism: the desire that social groups be organized into a hierarchy, generally with one’s own group dominant over the others.¹ A social dominance orientation, they show, inclines people to a sweeping array of opinions and values, including patriotism, racism, fate, karma, caste, national destiny, militarism, toughness on crime, and defensiveness of existing arrangements of authority and inequality. An orientation away from social dominance, in contrast, inclines people to humanism, socialism, feminism, universal rights, progressivism, and the egalitarian and pacifist themes in the Christian Bible.

¹Social dominance: Pratto et al., 2006; Sidanius & Pratto, 2009.

It interests me what a thorough match that is for me (and, probably, most of you, or you wouldn’t be reading this blog). I dislike all the items in the first list, and favor all the items in the second (except for the Xian bible part). I do dislike social dominance and/or tribalism, and the qualities and “virtues” that apparently go with it.

I think it would be a better world if more people did.

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

Some of Bill Cosby’s accusers are fighting back.

Two women who have accused Bill Cosby of historical sex offences have joined a defamation action against the star.

The original case was filed in December by Tamara Green, who has accused Cosby of assaulting her in the 1970s.

The two new plaintiffs are Therese Serignese and Linda Traitz.

The women claim the comedian publicly called them liars through statements issued by his representatives. Cosby is facing a series of accusations, which he has called “unsubstantiated”.

The women’s lawyer, Joseph Cammarata, said the civil action allows them to have their allegations heard now criminal statutes of limitation have expired.

…

Ms Green, who first spoke out regarding her allegations in 2005, said in her claim that [Cosby’s publicist David} Brokaw had made statements intended to expose her to public contempt and ridicule.

Well that’s what you do when you’re a rich and famous tv star accused of drugging and raping a slew of women – you do your best to expose them to public contempt and ridicule, by way of discrediting their testimony.

Ms Serignese and Ms Traitz, from Florida, allege in the amended complaint that when they came forward in November last year, Mr Singer issued responses for Cosby that said they were lying.

Best known as Dr Cliff Huxtable on The Cosby Show from 1984 to 1992, the 77-year-old comedian is facing a number of allegations dating back to the 1970s.

The accusations, which he has described as “fantastical” and “uncorroborated”, have led to some of his stand-up shows being called off and the cancellation of some TV projects.

Cosby has not been charged in connection with any of the allegations.

I look forward to hundreds of Irish blog posts explaining that the police have not arrested Cosby and therefore the BBC is smearing him.

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

From a conversation Chris Stedman had with Phil Zuckerman about the rise in “nones” in the US and whether or not the pugnacity of people like Dawkins and Bill Maher is the chief cause:

CS: What are some of the most important things nontheists can do right now to support the growing number of nonreligious Americans? What should we prioritize?

PZ: In my opinion, the best thing atheists can do right now is to make the world a better place. That means fighting inequality, racism, sexism, homophobia, religious fundamentalism, and global warming. When life is hard—when people face suffering—religion tends to be strong; it offers comfort in the face of life’s troubles. But when life is more manageable and secure, people can find meaning and purpose in the here and now.

To put it more crudely: when life is shit, religion has a chance. When life is better, people have less need for religion. Better things are better. It’s better for people to have better lives, and the decline of religion would be a good side effect of that. The really important bit though is the betterness of more people having better lives.

We also need to bring in more voices into the secular tent: more people of color, more people from differing political viewpoints, more families with children.

More women. That’s a big one, because we’re half. If you leave us out, you’re leaving out half. Don’t leave out half.

But we have been making progress: Twenty years ago, if you wanted to find a community of secular humanists, it wasn’t always so easy, especially if you weren’t in a big city. Or didn’t just want to hang out in a room with ten whites guys in Members Only jackets and glasses with ugly frames. Today, the diversity of a plethora of options for finding secular community is truly amazing.

And would be even more so if there weren’t such an ugly pushback going on.

Finally, we need to help our secular brothers and sisters in regions of the world where being secular isn’t so easy. They desperately need our support.

Yes they do. You can find quite a few of them right here on this blog network.

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

Alistair McBay suggests that charity work should be done because it’s a good thing to do, not as a way to justify arbitrary privileges.

Recently some Christian leaders in Scotland angered at secularists challenging their privileges have responded by pointing out the National Secular Society and other secular groups don’t run care homes, or operate food banks, or run adoption agencies. Secularists have been the target of this ill-informed sniping from both the Free Church of Scotland and the Church of Scotland, and Anglican and Catholic leaders have made similar attacks in the past.

It’s a familiar trope. “You rage-bloggers aren’t out there bagging up groceries for war refugees so shut up!” You can plug in any terms you like in order to jab at anyone you don’t like. What did you do in the war Daddy; Dear Muslima; first world problems; professional victims; yadda yadda. It’s not always wholly unreasonable, but most of the time it’s mostly unreasonable. Use sparingly if at all.

The NSS is not a registered charity, it is a not-for-profit campaigning organisation. It would be more accurate for the churches to compare us not with themselves, but to the Christian not-for-profit think-tank Ekklesia, which is also a campaigning group, not a registered charity, and doesn’t run care homes or food banks.

And that kind of distinction applies to so many things. Journalists aren’t firefighters; musicians aren’t doctors; engineers aren’t charity administrators. Different people do different things. Lots of things need doing. We get to choose.

I know of no secular charity that prostitutes its charitable works as justification for retaining special privilege in society – that seems to be the sole prerogative of some religious groups. All over the UK, every day of the year, people of all religious beliefs and none perform selfless works and activities to raise funds for those worse off in some way, or give up their valuable personal time as volunteers to make better the lives of others less fortunate. Yet the only people who consistently brag (sorry, bear witness) about what they do in this regard are church leaders looking to leverage this work in exchange for power and privilege, and to champion their allegedly superior belief system.

I suppose they want to think their allegedly superior belief system is good for something.

Of course many secularists donate or support charities run by religious groups, including the many secularists who are also believers. How wonderful it would be if Christian leaders could continue the good work that their churches and congregations do because they are just good people with a human desire to help others, and did so without using it as a bargaining chip for special favour and influence.

Yet in its own way the NSS funds charitable organisations and activity. For example, we may not run schools or provide shelters for battered women, but our annual Secularist of the Year fund has recognised and rewarded charities such as Plan UK which supports the education of girls and young women around the world, an award we made in recognition of the wonderful example of Malala Yousafzai. We also continue to support secular groups such as the Southall Black Sisters, who do such sterling work on behalf of victims of domestic abuse in the UK’s black and minority ethnic communities and challenge the religious dogma which contributes to their marginalisation. And we could do so much more of this if only we didn’t pay our taxes in full and enjoyed the tax breaks and regular Government handouts the churches receive.

I have yet to see any church leader comment that the £15m handed out in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement for church roof repairs would be better spent directly providing a happier Christmas for many of the homeless. And this, remember, is on top of the £42m Listed Places of Worship Grants Scheme, which provides funding amongst other things for auto-winding turret clocks, pipe organs and bells and bell ropes!

See? That’s the danger of this “why don’t you do _______ instead of what you are doing?” trope – it can be applied to almost anyone; it’s a gun that fires backward.

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

There’s an event in Oslo at the end of this month that looks extraordinary, and it seems to be somewhat under-publicized. It’s called World Woman, and the list of speakers and performers is jaw-dropping in its richness and geographic breadth. It’s organized by Deeyah Khan’s group Fuuse.

Deeyah says it will be a mehfil:

“When I was growing up, I experienced the warmth and vitality of a great South Asian cultural institution – the mehfil – a spirited, informal gathering in an intimate, salon-style setting. In these hospitable mehfils, the guests listened to music and poetry, held impassioned discussions about the significant issues affecting the world and, most importantly, celebrated and connected with each other. I remember them as nights of great brilliance and inspiration, conversations and performances. This is what I want to bring to Oslo on a cold winter’s night – the joy, spirit and warmth of the mehfil, bringing together heroes of activism and art, to share, to eat, to drink, to talk, connect and enjoy….” - Deeyah Khan, curator & founder of WORLD WOMAN

What is World Woman?

WORLD WOMAN is an intimate global gathering of solidarity in Oslo — a convening of courageous and creative women. They are defenders of freedom of expression, campaigners for gender equality, peace, justice and human rights; they are known and unknown activists, artists, journalists, leaders, policymakers, scholars, and changemakers.

The participants are activists and artists who have found the compassion and strength to speak about the needs and reality of people who are suffering. Sometimes risking their own lives and livelihoods in the defence of individual freedom and equality, they give voice to the marginalised, the excluded, the silenced.

This gathering is a gesture of solidarity with these remarkable women, and a tribute to their bravery and their achievements. It is an opportunity to hear their stories, to experience their artistic expression and to develop dialogue across cultures and disciplines in order to strengthen our own voices and protect theirs.

The topics:

WORLD WOMAN will unfold over two days of talk and performance at Riksscenen in Oslo. The underlying theme of WORLD WOMAN 2015 is Freedom Of Expression.

On the 30th of January 2015, we will explore freedom of expression; women, art and activism; and the rise of violent extremism and jihadism.

On the 31st of January 2015, we will explore women and peace, women under occupation, violence against women, and the crisis of masculinity

Both days will finish with an evening concert

Check out the people who will be there.

Just the top row –

Nawal El Saadawi

Writer, Activist, Medical Doctor | Egypt

Nawal El Saadawi is an internationally renowned writer, novelist, medical doctor and fighter for women rights. Her writing has influenced   five   generations of  women   and   men in Egypt, in other Arab   speaking countries as well as in   many   other   societies, …

Shirin Ebadi

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate | Iran

Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian lawyer, writer and human rights activist and founder of Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran. In 2003, she became the first Iranian to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her significant and pioneering …

Héla Fattoumi

Dancer, Choreographer | Tunisia

Hela Fattoumi, born in Tunis, is a French choreographers, a director of the National Choreographic Center of Caen Basse-Normandie and co-founder of the Fattoumi / Lamoureux Company in 1988 with Eric Lamoureux. She is a multi-award-winning choreographer who has been …

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

Let’s have something beneficent for the end of the day. (Well, end of the blogging day where I am. It’s morning in other places.) NPR tells us of a woman who climbed the corporate ladder and then hopped off it to do something helpful.

When Srirupa Dasgupta came to the U.S. from India to attend college in the mid-1980s, she was determined to work in high-tech, not the restaurant industry. But today, she owns a small restaurant and catering service in Lancaster, Pa., and employs primarily refugees who might have trouble finding work elsewhere.

She did work in high tech, but then she got tired of it. She was being an executive coach, and then

in 2008 she heard Nobel Peace Prize recipient Muhammad Yunus speak about for-profit businesses that also have a social objective.

…

In 2010, Dasgupta opened Upohar as a catering business with a social mission of hiring refugees and others, such as homeless people, who have difficulty finding work. Last April she expanded and opened a restaurant. Employees are paid double the minimum wage, which is $7.25 an hour in Pennsylvania.

Tulsha Chauwan is a chef at the restaurant. Her family fled Bhutan in South Asia and then spent years in a refugee camp in Nepal before the U.S. granted permission to come here. Her favorite dish to make is eggplant tarkari, a dish that’s special to her because her mother taught her to make it.

Dasgupta says Chauwan was very shy at first, but now she’s bringing in new recipes regularly, hoping her boss will put them on the menu.

Rachel Bunkete is lead chef at Upohar and has her own favorite dish to cook: peanut stew. She learned how to make it growing up in the Democratic Republic of Congo in Central Africa.

In 2008 she fled the political, ethnic and religious conflicts there. Bunkete had to leave behind her husband and three children. Eventually she got permission to come to the U.S. Here she was able to make contact with her family again.

She’s saving money from her job to bring her family over.

It’s good to read about people like Srirupa Dasgupta in among all the killers and tormenters.

H/t Kausik.

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

For more from the Annals of Inappropriate Royal Influence, we get the BBC deciding to postpone its new documentary on Charles Windsor’s efforts to spin the press, after some royal lawyers oozed up to them in the canteen and leaned heavily on their shoulders. Jessica Elgot reports in the HuffPo UK:

According to the Radio Times, the documentary, presented by former Panorama editor Steve Hewlett, was pulled from the 9pm slot on Sunday’s schedule after lawyers “known to represent senior members of the royal family” had made contact.

Reinventing The Royals is described on the corporation’s website as a “two-part series about the twenty-year battle between the monarchy and the media – the first family and the fourth estate – over personal privacy and public image”.

I guess now we need another documentary on the battle between the monarchy and the media over showing a documentary about the battle between the monarchy and the media. Maybe there can be an infinite loop.

A statement from the corporation said: “The BBC is delaying broadcast of the documentary Reinventing The Royals, due to be shown on BBC Two on January 4, until later in the New Year while a number of issues including the use of archive footage are resolved.”

How fraffly kind and deferential of them. It wouldn’t do for the royals to be subject to too much public scrutiny. Their job is to spend other people’s money and live in luxury, not to be questioned or criticized by the peasants.

Anti-monarchy campaign Republic have said they will write to James Harding, the BBC’s head of news and current affairs, to seek clarification on why the documentary has been postponed.

Republic’s spokesman Graham Smith, said: “The decision to delay broadcast of this documentary looks like undue pressure and interference that would not be tolerated if it were from Cameron or Miliband.

“At best the BBC might make a quick edit to avoid libelling someone – but delaying the broadcast so it can discuss the content of a documentary with its principal subject is unacceptable.

“The BBC has a responsibility to the public to show no fear or favour in its reporting. Prince Charles is in line to be Britain’s head of state – he must be subjected to the same standards of media scrutiny as any politician.

“The BBC and other broadcasters are far too deferential to the royals. It’s time they began to treat them in the same way they treat politicians and other public officials.”

That’s how it seems to me. I dislike all this bowing and scraping, this jumping when a royal says jump. It’s demeaning. Plus it only encourages Charles to think he’s a fine amateur doctor.

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

Originally a comment by Donal O’Keeffe on They tried to out-Catholic each other.

As the author of the original article in TheJournal.ie,http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/clinically-dead-pregnant-women-highlights-repeal-the-8th-amendment-1856170-Dec2014/, I should add that the column was written in the context of Ireland’s latest – but unlikely to be its last – “right-to-life” horror story. This time the very meaning of life and the very meaning of death were twisted and reduced to the stuff of nightmares as doctors, fearing prosecution for murder, denied a brain-dead pregnant woman a natural death.

(Dearbhail McDonald, Legal Editor of the Irish Independent, covered that story in some depth here:http://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/time-to-speak-out-on-eighth-amendment-30865496.html)

The Eighth Amendment to the Irish Constitution was foisted on supine politicians in 1983 and voted for by 850,000 people. The youngest of those voters are in their fifties now. The Irish Times’ Fintan O’Toole wrote recently, and brilliantly, about the forces behind the Eighth Amendment. They were exactly who you think they were. Read O’Toole’s column here:http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/why-ireland-became-the-only-country-in-the-democratic-world-to-have-a-constitutional-ban-on-abortion-1.1907610

That amendment gave us Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution, which states that mother and unborn have equal rights to life and the State will vindicate those rights where practicable. In effect, a woman, a sentient person, is reduced in value to being of the same worth under Irish law as a days-old cluster of cells within her.

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

Nick Cohen is fed up with Charles Windsor’s meddling. He starts by pointing out that however dull the current queen may be, she does have the virtue of not meddling with the government.

The palace and the politicians expect a smooth succession to the reign of Charles III, even though he is a man who has spent his life demonstrating how woefully unqualified he is to be a constitutional king. A small measure of his failure lies in the BBC’s decision to postpone and possibly ban Reinventing the Royals, which it was due to be shown tonight. I can just about understand why Prince Charles wanted to stop a documentary about the PR tactics he employed to recover his reputation after the death of Princess Diana. It would have made him look like a politician running for office rather than an heir apparent, who expects to become sovereign of the United Kingdom and 15 other Commonwealth states by the modern equivalent of divine right.

…But, come on, this is the BBC, whose deference before crown and altar is an embarrassment. Reinventing the Royals is a straight documentary. Any intelligent PR would have told Charles to ignore the programme. Unfortunately, you never see intelligence and our future sovereign in the same room. True to form, the prince’s “people” have gone ape and turned a routine documentary into a cause celebre.

The affair shows what anyone who raises their eyes from the floor in the presence of royalty already knows. The future Charles III expects to be heeded, not scrutinised, and above all he expects to intervene in politics with a regularity and partisanship his mother never dared imitate or, as far as we know, ever wanted to imitate either.

Annnnnnd…he’s not supposed to do that.

But “supposed” is the operative word – it’s not possible to use anything stronger, because the UK doesn’t have a written constitution. Apparently this means that however not supposed to he is, Charles can carry right on acting like a real future king with real powers.

There’s no secret. His aides have announced that King Charles will “reshape the monarch’s role” and make “heartfelt interventions”.

Couldn’t he just become a third Koch brother instead?

A by no means exhaustive list of his political interventions includes: health – he forced ministers to listen to his gormless support for homeopathic treatments and every other variety of charlatanism and quackery; defence – he protested against cuts in the armed forces; justice – he complained about ordinary people’s access to law, or as he put it: “I dread the very real and growing prospect of an American-style personal injury culture”; political correctness – he opposes equality as I suppose a true royal must; GM foods – he thinks they’re dangerous, regardless of evidence; modern architecture – he’s against; and eco-towns – he’s for, as long as he has a say in their design.

He abuses his absurd and antiquated power. He has no shame, no modesty, no sense that he is not wise or clever, no awareness that his position is entirely arbitrary and unconnected to real merit or talent or utility.

After four generations of telling the British that the monarchy is a unifying force “above politics”, politicians do not even trouble to pretend that Charles III is anything other than a “player” with his own manifesto and prejudices. When the former attorney general Dominic Grieve tried to stop the Guardian finding out how the prince lobbies, he did not say that a neutral royal should be left alone. On the contrary, he said that the prince’s letters to ministers expressed his “most deeply held personal views and beliefs” and were in “many cases particularly frank”. They must be kept secret because publication would destroy the illusion of a royal neutrality no one in power thinks exists any more.

The UK needs an Edward Snowden. It needs someone to get all the letters to ministers by whatever means necessary and publish the fuck out of them.

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

Parliament issued information about the absolute exemption for the royals which we commoners are allowed to read and share.

The Freedom of Information Act 2000, as amended, includes an exemption for
communications with The Queen, other members of the Royal Family and the Royal
Household, and the awarding of Honours by the Crown (section 37). Certain information
relating to the Sovereign and to the heir and second in line to the Throne is absolutely
exempt from the Act, whereas information relating to other members of the Royal Family and
the Royal Household is subject to the public interest test.

So Brenda and Choss and William are all absolutely exempt. They can plot with Boko Haram if they want to and keep it entirely to themselves.

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 does not apply directly to the Royal Household, as the
Royal Household is not included in the Act’s definition of a public authority. However,
communications with the Royal Family are exempt under Section 37 of the Act which
provides that information is exempt:
(1)… if it relates to— .
(a) communications with the Sovereign, .
(aa) communications with the heir to, or the person who is for the time being second in
line of succession to, the Throne, .
(ab) communications with a person who has subsequently acceded to the Throne or
become heir to, or second in line to, the Throne,
(ac) communications with other members of the Royal Family (other than
communications which fall within any of paragraphs (a) to (ab) because they are made
or received on behalf of a person falling within any of those paragraphs), and .
(ad) communications with the Royal Household (other than communications which fall
within any of paragraphs (a) to (ac) because they are made or received on behalf of a
person falling within any of those paragraphs), or .
(b) the conferring by the Crown of any honour or dignity.

They’re Special, Magical, Anointed, Superhuman, Enchanted people, who stand on the very pinnacle of the UK, benevolently guiding it, therefore they have to be allowed to operate in total secrecy, because.

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

That piece in the Independent about special exemptions for the royals from the FOIA was four years old, but it’s all the more newsworthy because the exemptions are now part of the law, so I’ve been looking into the matter.

Index on Censorship covered it in March 2011, a couple of months after the Indy article.

There was some strengthening of the royals’ exemption in 2010.

But full FoI exemption for the Royal Family was sealed by the current government. On 16 January 2011, just a week after the Ministry of Justice trumpeted to extend the scope of FoI for increased transparency of public affairs, Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke announced his commencement order to bring Royal Family exemption into full force:

The changes provide an absolute instead of a qualified exemption for information relating to communications with the sovereign, heir to the throne or second in line to the throne or those acting on their behalf.

So that’s that. Charles Windsor puts pressure on the government to fund homeopathy on the NHS? Secret. Charles meddles with planning permission in London and elsewhere? Secret. Charles demands friendlier treatment of his Saudi mates? Secret. Charles sends love letters to the pope? Secret. [your worst nightmare here]? Secret.

Whereas there was previously an exemption from the exemption, Freedom of Information enquiries about the Royal Family are no longer subject to a public interest test. There is no way to hold them under account under FoI.

They’re like the NSA, but with ermine and diamonds.

Republic, the British organisation campaigning for the end of a constitutional role for the monarchy, raised concerns ahead of the Bill’s assent.

“If passed, this amendment would mean that Charles’s attempts to influence government policy on health, architecture, education, agriculture, the environment, even war and peace, will remain secret – until years after his death. Far from protecting ‘impartiality’, this amendment gives Charles the green light to get even more stuck in.”

The light is now well and truly green since the Act became law. During the Parliamentary debate of the Bill Jack Straw told MPs that there was “no way members of the royal family can change public policy.” Unfortunately, with the Act’s amendment to FOIA we’re not allowed to see that for ourselves.

And there’s good reason to think it’s not true.

Republic this week, supported by Index on Censorship, has written to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, calling on him to use the Protection of Freedoms Bill to reverse this exemption and “to define the royal household for the first time as a public authority within the terms of the Act”.

“This is not simply about the royal household’s use of public funds – it is a serious issue of accountability and transparency that goes to the heart of government.  It is well documented, and admitted by Clarence House, that the Prince of Wales routinely lobbies government ministers on a wide range of controversial and deeply political matters such as the environment, education and health.

“The current lack of scrutiny over such actions means that citizens have no means by which to judge if ministers are taking decisions according to the public interest or to suit the interests and agenda of the heir to the throne.”

Republic, along with cosignatories Heather Brooke, author and Freedom of information Campaigner; Professor Roy Greenslade, Department of Journalism, City University and former editor of the Mirror; Cllr. Mike Harris, Head of Public Affairs, Index on Censorship; Professor Stephen Haseler, Director, Reform Foundation; and Professor Adam Tomkins, John Millar Professor of Public Law, is inviting Clegg to discuss these issues and add to the Protection of Freedoms Bill “amendments that would bring the royal household and the monarchy fully within the scope of the Act”.

Did that happen? No.

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

Update: this story is 4 years old; see comment @ 21. It’s still relevant though.

Here’s a bit of news that is surprising and also very disgusting. The UK royals are going to get a special helping of secrecy in a new amendment to their Freedom of Information act.

The Royal Family is to be granted absolute protection from public scrutiny in a controversial legal reform designed to draw a veil of secrecy over the affairs of the Queen, Prince Charles and Prince William.

Letters, emails and documents relating to the monarch, her heir and the second in line to the throne will no longer be disclosed even if they are in the public interest.

Sweeping changes to the Freedom of Information Act will reverse advances which had briefly shone a light on the royal finances – including an attempt by the Queen to use a state poverty fund to heat Buckingham Palace – and which had threatened to force the disclosure of the Prince of Wales’s prolific correspondence with ministers.

Including what?? An attempt by the Queen to use a state poverty fund to heat Buckingham Palace? I did not know about that.

And that business of Charles’s prolific correspondence with ministers? As I understand it he’s not even supposed to be doing that – he’s constitutionally not permitted to interfere with the government. No wonder he wants to keep it a secret, but why is the government, however Tory (and LibDem), helping him?

Lobbying and correspondence from junior staff working for the Royal Household and Prince Charles will now be held back from disclosure. Buckingham Palace confirmed that it had consulted with the Coalition Government over the change in the law. The Government buried the plan for “added protection” for the Royal Family in the small print of plans called “opening up public bodies to public scrutiny”.

More privileges for the already-privilege-laden; what a good idea.

Ian Davidson, a former member of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), told The Independent: “I’m astonished that the Government should find time to seek to cover up royal finances. When I was on the PAC what we wanted was more disclosure not less.

“Every time we examined royal finances we found extravagance and indulgence as well as abuse of expenses by junior royals.

“Everywhere we looked, there were savings to be made for the Government. This sends the wrong message about public disclosure and accountability.”

Not to mention democracy, equality before the law, equal rights – quite a few things.

Paul Flynn, another member of the committee, described the special protection for the Royals as “indefensible”. He said: “I don’t think it serves the interests of the public or the Royal Family very well.”

Mr Frankel said he believed that Prince Charles was the driving force behind the new law.

“The heir to the throne has written letters to government departments in an attempt to influence policy,” he said.

“He clearly does not want these to get into the public domain.”

Yeah, see, because that’s what he’s not supposed to be doing – attempting to influence policy. The Royals are not supposed to do that.

At the end we get more on that gruesome item about taking money from the poor to heat Buck House.

In the public interest? The stories they didn’t want us to know

*In 2004 the Queen asked ministers for a poverty handout to help heat her palaces but was rebuffed because they feared it would be a public relations disaster. Royal aides were told that the £60m worth of energy-saving grants were aimed at families on low incomes and if the money was given to Buckingham Palace instead of housing associations or hospitals it could lead to “adverse publicity” for the Queen and the government.

Ya think?

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

The Ex-Muslims Forum on Twitter points out a murderous little Q&A from the Luton Islamic Centre in which the A is yes indeed apostates must be killed.

Q: Many Muslim groups in the US, like CAIR, MAS, MPAC, said that since there is no
compulsion in Islam, how can the Afghan government execute the apostate… your website
said that the apostate should be executed, this is not from Islam only, but in Christian times
(pre-Islam)… And… what about a person who might have left Islam and then came back, and
died Muslim…if s/he had been killed the first time, s/he would not have had the chance to
return to Islam… of course ultimately who dies as Muslim is Allah’s Will…and it is already
written in His Book.

No no no that’s not the right way to look at it at all. It’s Allah’s Will that Allah’s submitters should kill people who decide they don’t like Islam after all.

A: I do not have knowledge if these organizations actually took this position. Nevertheless, the
answer is still clear and simple.

Allah said in the Quran, {There is no compulsion in religion};
[2:256]. This is the explanation on this Ayah found in my book, Holy Wars…Crusades…Jihad,
“Ibn Kathir said, ‘This Ayah means, ‘Do not force anyone to embrace the religion of Islam,
because Islam is clear, plain and its evidences and proofs are indisputable. Therefore, it is not
necessary that anyone be forced to embrace it. Rather, those whom Allah guides, opens their
hearts and enlightens their minds towards Islam, will embrace it with knowledge. Those whom
Allah prevents their hearts and seals their hearing and sight from accepting Islam, will not
benefit from being forced to embrace it’; Tafsir ibn Kathir, Vol. 1, Pg., 416.’” Thus, this Ayah is
about those who are not Muslim: Muslims are not allowed to force those who are not Muslim
–to begin with- to embrace Islam. What does this have to do at all with the punishment of
those who are Muslim but commit the crime of abandoning Islam, thus, becoming non-Muslim
after they had been Muslim? The opinion mentioned in the question is amazing: it indicates
the type of ‘knowledge’ that prevails among many Muslims these days. It seems that the
reason behind using this sick logic to invalidate Islamic Law, is to suit modern-day disbelievers,
who will stop at nothing less than the complete corruption of Islam…

Aha, so that’s what it means. “There is no compulsion in religion” means you mustn’t compel outsiders. Insiders, on the other hand, must not attempt to become outsiders again. Insiders, once inside, may not leave. They are not allowed to change their minds. They are not allowed to try it and find they dislike it, and so exit. No. Doing that is a crime, and they must be killed.

These are two completely different topics: forcing non-Muslims to embrace Islam vs. the
punishment, carried out by the Islamic State, of those who were Muslim but committed the
crime of abandoning Islam.

Outsiders can be left to their fate – Allah will chew them up and spit them out when Allah gets good and ready. Insiders on the other hand – them we get to kill.

If we follow this silly reasoning, then what about the remainder of
the Hadeeth that legislates this law, as al-Bukhari and Muslims reported it from Allah’s
Prophet, who said, “The blood of a Muslim who confesses that none has the right to be
worshipped but Allah and that I am His Messenger, cannot be shed except in three cases: In
Qisas (Law of Equity) for murder; a married person who commits illegal sexual intercourse; and
the one who reverts from Islam (apostate) and leaves the Muslims.” Should we also abandon
the punishment for the adulterer, since ‘there is no compulsion in religion’? Should we also abandon other parts of the Islamic Penal code if the offense does not really harm others, such
as abandoning Prayer, drinking, cursing the Prophet, salla-llahu `alaihi wa-sallam, etc., since
‘there is no compulsion in religion’?

Yes, you should. Thank you for asking. Yes, you should stop punishing people for abandoning prayer or “cursing the prophet” or having sex outside marriage. Yes.

Muslims should be strong and stand behind every part of their Law, if they seek
Allah’s Help and Support that is. As for the second part of the question, about if we leave the
apostate un-punished he might go back to Islam, then what is stopping him from doing so
before being killed, even if to become a hypocrite? What if he does not repent in the future
and tempts others who have weak hearts and faith to follow him, should we stand idle while
whole segments of the Muslim Society becomes non-Muslim?

Yes, you should. That would be fabulous.

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

That toddler who found the gun in his mother’s handbag at Walmart and killed her with it – how often do accidents of that kind happen?

No one knows, David Graham at the Atlantic tells us.

There aren’t reliable statistics on gun incidents involving kids.

Because…it doesn’t matter? We forgot? There’s no money in the budget for that? We’re going to do it next year?

…it’s unclear how often children accidentally shoot people. The Washington Post looked into the question earlier in 2014, after a 9-year-old at a shooting range in Arizona lost control of an Uzi and killed her instructor. Mark Berman found that no agency could give him a clear answer on the matter. While there are often media reports about such deaths, there’s no comprehensive database. One can track the number of victims of accidental shootings younger than 18 with some confidence, but it’s tougher to track them by who’s pulling the trigger.

Maybe that’s because what’s the point of collecting the data if you can’t do anything about the problem?

Research for more than a decade has found that accidental shooting deaths are consistently undercounted.

The upshot of all this is that it’s hard to learn any policy lessons from Rutledge’s death—in addition to the impossibility of making sense of it on any emotional level.

But what’s the point of learning policy lessons if you’re not allowed to put what you learn into practice?

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

But don’t forget, online harassment is no big deal.

Casey Parks at OregonLive reports:

A prank call sent a large number of Portland police officers to a Southwest Portland home late Friday night.

Central Precinct officers responded to a home in the 11200 block of Southwest Capitol Highway around midnight after receiving reports that an armed man was holding residents hostage inside.

As officers were developing a plan to contact residents, they learned that the call was probably a hoax.

They later confirmed that everyone inside the home was safe.

A Twitter user who goes by Grace Lynn says the hoax, called a “swatting,” was intended for her. A forum on the website 8chan described the plan to “swat” her.

8chan?? That nice harmless outlet for discussions of ethics & gaming and similar controversial issues? Surely 8chan wouldn’t do a thing like that.

Police Sgt. Pete Simpson confirmed the bureau did receive a phone call suggesting the original call was a prank.

“The whole swatting term came from people calling to get a SWAT team to go out on a call,” Simpson said. “But that’s not how we operate. Patrol officers are going to go assess a scene based on what they see. We don’t roll out a SWAT team just because someone calls 911. We need more than a phone call.”

…

“You’re taking away resources that might be needed for someone who has a real emergency,” Simpson said.

Unless it’s GamerGate or people who hate “SJWs” – if they’re the ones doing it then no harm will befall anyone as a result, because god is Just.

Simpson said the bureau has encountered one or two other “swatting” attempts but that such prank calls won’t be successful here.

“It’s not going to result in the prank playing out the way the prankster wanted it to,” Simpson said. “But it does create significant risk to the public and significant risk to officers responding. And the prankster can face state and federal charges.”

Improper Use of an Emergency Reporting System is a crime in Oregon, and investigators say they will work to identity the caller and make an arrest.

Anyone with information about this incident is asked to email it to CrimeTips@portlandoregon.gov.

But but but…online harassment is no big deal. Everybody says so.

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

Now that Dave has drawn my attention to that Salon article saying please stop spelling “God” as “god” I feel like telling the author, Richard Eskow, my reason for disliking the automatic “God” as opposed to “god.”

Please, please, stop writing “god” in lowercase form.

I get it. You don’t believe in a supreme being. That’s fine with me. What anybody believes or doesn’t believe is their call. You may believe that the world would be a better place without organized religion. Having seen organized religion in action, I’m inclined to say you may be right. You may believe that even private, reflective, personal religion is harmful, although I don’t see that myself.

Notice he didn’t say “You don’t believe in The Supreme Being.”

The reason he didn’t do that is the same as the reason I spell “God” “god” when it’s not too confusing. (I don’t always do it, because sometimes it is confusing.)

I understand why some atheists might want to write “god” instead of “God.” If you believe that the word describes a human phenomenon rather than a genuine and existent deity, it might seem appropriate to use the lowercase form. But it’s not.  If you are referring to the singular and all-powerful deity of monotheistic tradition, you are using a proper name. That means the capital “G” is a must.

No. Here’s why: the thing being named is too various and flexible and differently-described by different people or in different contexts to have a proper name. Giving it a proper name conveys an air of reality and familiarity that “god” should not have. Every sighting of a “God” gives another little layer of acceptance of the actuality of the putative person named, even to people who on a conscious level don’t believe in it. It’s merely a custom, and it’s one we’re allowed to break.

To be sure, there will continue to be many opportunities to use the word in lowercase form. The phrase “belief in gods” is punctuated correctly. So is “belief in a monotheistic god.” But the phrase “belief in god” is not correct, no matter what you do or don’t believe.

You’ve said it a thousand times, and I get it: You don’t believe in capital-G God any more than I believe in Tinkerbell. That doesn’t change anything. (See what I did there? I don’t believe in an entity named “Tinkerbell.” But since it is the proper name of a, yes, fictional character, I capitalized it.)

Ah yes, but “Tinkerbell” is a fictional character, and recognized as such. So are Hamlet and Lear and Emma Woodhouse and Thea Kronborg, but “God” is not – because of lacking the recognized as such part. Talking about god as God makes it more concrete and matter-of-fact and normalized; we shouldn’t do that.

The true nature of creation may be in dispute, but the proper usage in this case is not. Webster’s Dictionary tells us that a “god” is “a spirit or being that has great knowledge, strength, power, etc.” while “God” is “the perfect and all-powerful spirit or being … worshipped by Christians, Jews, and Muslims …”

One is a noun. The other is a name. If it weren’t a name, it would be necessary to use a different sentence construction, as in: “They forced the sergeant to swear to the god,” or, “Is the god good?”

Indeed, and that would be better. It would be better because it would make it clearer what everyone was talking about.

And by the way we know what the dictionary meaning is. We know it’s not standard to call it “god.” That’s the point.

The atheist/religionist debate concerns nothing less than the fundamental nature of the cosmos. It involves issues like the fundamental ground of being, life after death, the soul, and the origin of all existence. If anybody wants to argue those things, be my guest. But now we’re talking about grammar.  When you don’t capitalize a proper name like God’s, you’re violating a fundamental principle of grammar.

Don’t.be.silly. One, we’re allowed to violate putative fundamental principles of grammar; two, we’re all the more allowed when we do it for a reason; three, it’s not even a fundamental principle of grammar anyway; four, it’s not a proper name like other proper names because it can refer to anything and everything, and definitely not only the Webster’s definition; five, e.e. cummings; six, bell hooks; seven, don’t be silly.

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