Ken White also takes on Garry Trudeau, at Popehat.

Last week cartoonist Garry Trudeau received the George Polk award for journalism. It’s an award named in memory of a journalist murdered while covering a war. Trudeau used the opportunity to say that while murdering journalists is sub-optimal, journalists need to rethink offending people:

What free speech absolutists have failed to acknowledge is that because one has the right to offend a group does not mean that one must. Or that that group gives up the right to be outraged. They’re allowed to feel pain. Freedom should always be discussed within the context of responsibility. At some point free expression absolutism becomes childish and unserious. It becomes its own kind of fanaticism.

It really is quite staggering that he managed to formulate that thought, and write it down, and say it to an audience, in the context of the slaughter at Charlie Hebdo. The issue is not the right to be outraged or being allowed to feel pain. The issue is murdering cartoonists. The Kouachi brothers were not feeling pain when they murdered all those people. They were feeling powerful and righteous. Let’s not lose sight of literal power like guns and the willingness to fire them.

Trudeau’s complaint received sighs of rapture from Lydia Polgreen, a bureau chief at the New York Times, an institution generally associated — justifiably or not — with freeexpression:

Well, if by “wise” you mean thoughtless and stupid, and if by “nuanced” you mean crude and facts-ignoring.

Ken points out that Trudeau is relying on a parochial and privileged view of blasphemy in saying this – emphasis his, and rightly so. Trudeau has the privilege of not worrying that he will be hacked to death with machetes the way Avijit Roy and Washiqur Rahman were. He has the privilege of not being driven out of his country the way Taslima Nasreen was. He has the privilege of not being threatened with one thousand lashes and imprisoned and fined the way Raif Badawi was and is. And so on; Ken gives other examples. God knows there’s no shortage of them.

The issue is that anti-blasphemy social and legal norms are a tool of oppression of people who are powerless, even by the finicky standards of Trudeau and the New York Times. The concept of blasphemy is used to persecute religious minorities, ethnic minorities, rights activists, and anyone else disfavored by the mullahs and the mob. It is used to protect power — the existing power structure of the mostly conservative, mostly traditional, mostly male-and-religious-dominated societies where the concept holds sway.

Garry Trudeau and Lydia Polgreen are the useful idiots of the brutal and the powerful. By obligingly framing the “blasphemy debate” as an issue of West v. East and journalistic power vs. Islamic powerlessness, they support and advance the blasphemy norms used to murder and oppress the genuinely powerless. They are punching down.

Beautifully said.

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

Padraig Reidy has some things to say to Garry Trudeau about his ignorant and illiberal comments about Charlie Hebdo last week.

I thought we’d got somewhere closer to clarity on the Paris massacres by now. But comments made by Garry Trudeau, creator of Doonesbury[,] last week suggest we might have to go through this again. Speaking at Long Island University on 10 April, the veteran cartoonist sought to spread his wisdom on “the tragedy in Paris” (note the oddly neutral word “tragedy”: not “murders”, say).

“As you know,” Trudeau commented, “the Muhammad cartoon controversy began eight years ago in Denmark, as a protest against ‘self-censorship,’ one editor’s call to arms against what she [sic] felt was a suffocating political correctness.”

…

“By punching downward, by attacking a powerless, disenfranchised minority with crude, vulgar drawings closer to graffiti than cartoons, Charlie wandered into the realm of hate speech, which in France is only illegal if it directly incites violence.”

I was shocked to read those words. Et tu Garry Trudeau?? I’d have thought he was too smart for that.

“What free speech absolutists have failed to acknowledge is that because one has the right to offend a group does not mean that one must. Or that that group gives up the right to be outraged. They’re allowed to feel pain. Freedom should always be discussed within the context of responsibility. At some point free expression absolutism becomes childish and unserious. It becomes its own kind of fanaticism.”

Yes, Mr Trudeau, everyone has the right to be outraged. Everyone has the right to feel pain. What this has to do with murdering magazine staff and Jewish shoppers I have no idea. You seem to be suggesting that normal Muslims express pain through violence, rather than acknowledging that the Paris atrocities, and indeed the burning of churches and bars in Niger, were carried out by people acting upon a political ideology, the same ideology that justifies enslavement and murder by the Islamic State. For the avoidance of doubt, it is not me conflating normal Muslims and jihadists here: it is Trudeau.

He’s also sort of kind of justifying the murder of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists and members of staff including the Muslim copy editor and the Muslim cop outside. I wonder if it occurs to him that Islamists with guns forcing their way into a magazine’s offices and killing a lot of unarmed people are “punching down.”

“I’m aware that I make these observations from a special position, one of safety. In America, no one goes into cartooning for the adrenaline. As Jon Stewart said in the aftermath of the killings, comedy in a free society shouldn’t take courage.”

You acknowledge this, but not for one moment does it inspire you to show an iota of solidarity with your fellow satirists.

Your fellow liberal, left-wing, anti-racist satirists.

Pathetic.

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

The whole scene is great, but the reason I went looking for it starts at 3:30 minutes in.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNsbssYc8gc

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

And then there’s Hetty Bates, by her own admission a talker. For instance in chapter IX of Emma, via Project Gutenberg:

Voices approached the shop—or rather one voice and two ladies: Mrs. Weston and Miss Bates met them at the door.

“My dear Miss Woodhouse,” said the latter, “I am just run across to entreat the favour of you to come and sit down with us a little while, and give us your opinion of our new instrument; you and Miss Smith. How do you do, Miss Smith?—Very well I thank you.—And I begged Mrs. Weston to come with me, that I might be sure of succeeding.”

“I hope Mrs. Bates and Miss Fairfax are—”

“Very well, I am much obliged to you. My mother is delightfully well; and Jane caught no cold last night. How is Mr. Woodhouse?—I am so glad to hear such a good account. Mrs. Weston told me you were here.—Oh! then, said I, I must run across, I am sure Miss Woodhouse will allow me just to run across and entreat her to come in; my mother will be so very happy to see her—and now we are such a nice party, she cannot refuse.—’Aye, pray do,’ said Mr. Frank Churchill, ‘Miss Woodhouse’s opinion of the instrument will be worth having.’—But, said I, I shall be more sure of succeeding if one of you will go with me.—’Oh,’ said he, ‘wait half a minute, till I have finished my job;’—For, would you believe it, Miss Woodhouse, there he is, in the most obliging manner in the world, fastening in the rivet of my mother’s spectacles.—The rivet came out, you know, this morning.—So very obliging!—For my mother had no use of her spectacles—could not put them on. And, by the bye, every body ought to have two pair of spectacles; they should indeed. Jane said so. I meant to take them over to John Saunders the first thing I did, but something or other hindered me all the morning; first one thing, then another, there is no saying what, you know. At one time Patty came to say she thought the kitchen chimney wanted sweeping. Oh, said I, Patty do not come with your bad news to me. Here is the rivet of your mistress’s spectacles out. Then the baked apples came home, Mrs. Wallis sent them by her boy; they are extremely civil and obliging to us, the Wallises, always—I have heard some people say that Mrs. Wallis can be uncivil and give a very rude answer, but we have never known any thing but the greatest attention from them. And it cannot be for the value of our custom now, for what is our consumption of bread, you know? Only three of us.—besides dear Jane at present—and she really eats nothing—makes such a shocking breakfast, you would be quite frightened if you saw it. I dare not let my mother know how little she eats—so I say one thing and then I say another, and it passes off. But about the middle of the day she gets hungry, and there is nothing she likes so well as these baked apples, and they are extremely wholesome, for I took the opportunity the other day of asking Mr. Perry; I happened to meet him in the street. Not that I had any doubt before—I have so often heard Mr. Woodhouse recommend a baked apple. I believe it is the only way that Mr. Woodhouse thinks the fruit thoroughly wholesome. We have apple-dumplings, however, very often. Patty makes an excellent apple-dumpling. Well, Mrs. Weston, you have prevailed, I hope, and these ladies will oblige us.”

Emma would be “very happy to wait on Mrs. Bates, &c.,” and they did at last move out of the shop, with no farther delay from Miss Bates than,

“How do you do, Mrs. Ford? I beg your pardon. I did not see you before. I hear you have a charming collection of new ribbons from town. Jane came back delighted yesterday. Thank ye, the gloves do very well—only a little too large about the wrist; but Jane is taking them in.”

“What was I talking of?” said she, beginning again when they were all in the street.

Emma wondered on what, of all the medley, she would fix.

“I declare I cannot recollect what I was talking of.—Oh! my mother’s spectacles. So very obliging of Mr. Frank Churchill! ‘Oh!’ said he, ‘I do think I can fasten the rivet; I like a job of this kind excessively.’—Which you know shewed him to be so very…. Indeed I must say that, much as I had heard of him before and much as I had expected, he very far exceeds any thing…. I do congratulate you, Mrs. Weston, most warmly. He seems every thing the fondest parent could…. ‘Oh!’ said he, ‘I can fasten the rivet. I like a job of that sort excessively.’ I never shall forget his manner. And when I brought out the baked apples from the closet, and hoped our friends would be so very obliging as to take some, ‘Oh!’ said he directly, ‘there is nothing in the way of fruit half so good, and these are the finest-looking home-baked apples I ever saw in my life.’ That, you know, was so very…. And I am sure, by his manner, it was no compliment. Indeed they are very delightful apples, and Mrs. Wallis does them full justice—only we do not have them baked more than twice, and Mr. Woodhouse made us promise to have them done three times—but Miss Woodhouse will be so good as not to mention it. The apples themselves are the very finest sort for baking, beyond a doubt; all from Donwell—some of Mr. Knightley’s most liberal supply. He sends us a sack every year; and certainly there never was such a keeping apple anywhere as one of his trees—I believe there is two of them. My mother says the orchard was always famous in her younger days. But I was really quite shocked the other day—for Mr. Knightley called one morning, and Jane was eating these apples, and we talked about them and said how much she enjoyed them, and he asked whether we were not got to the end of our stock. ‘I am sure you must be,’ said he, ‘and I will send you another supply; for I have a great many more than I can ever use. William Larkins let me keep a larger quantity than usual this year. I will send you some more, before they get good for nothing.’ So I begged he would not—for really as to ours being gone, I could not absolutely say that we had a great many left—it was but half a dozen indeed; but they should be all kept for Jane; and I could not at all bear that he should be sending us more, so liberal as he had been already; and Jane said the same. And when he was gone, she almost quarrelled with me—No, I should not say quarrelled, for we never had a quarrel in our lives; but she was quite distressed that I had owned the apples were so nearly gone; she wished I had made him believe we had a great many left. Oh, said I, my dear, I did say as much as I could. However, the very same evening William Larkins came over with a large basket of apples, the same sort of apples, a bushel at least, and I was very much obliged, and went down and spoke to William Larkins and said every thing, as you may suppose. William Larkins is such an old acquaintance! I am always glad to see him. But, however, I found afterwards from Patty, that William said it was all the apples of that sort his master had; he had brought them all—and now his master had not one left to bake or boil. William did not seem to mind it himself, he was so pleased to think his master had sold so many; for William, you know, thinks more of his master’s profit than any thing; but Mrs. Hodges, he said, was quite displeased at their being all sent away. She could not bear that her master should not be able to have another apple-tart this spring. He told Patty this, but bid her not mind it, and be sure not to say any thing to us about it, for Mrs. Hodges would be cross sometimes, and as long as so many sacks were sold, it did not signify who ate the remainder. And so Patty told me, and I was excessively shocked indeed! I would not have Mr. Knightley know any thing about it for the world! He would be so very…. I wanted to keep it from Jane’s knowledge; but, unluckily, I had mentioned it before I was aware.”

Miss Bates had just done as Patty opened the door; and her visitors walked upstairs without having any regular narration to attend to, pursued only by the sounds of her desultory good-will.

“Pray take care, Mrs. Weston, there is a step at the turning. Pray take care, Miss Woodhouse, ours is rather a dark staircase—rather darker and narrower than one could wish. Miss Smith, pray take care. Miss Woodhouse, I am quite concerned, I am sure you hit your foot. Miss Smith, the step at the turning.”

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

Originally a comment by Captaintripps on “But you’re wrong that you’re free to vote third party.”

This line of reasoning is so screwy, though I understand where it comes from. My vote is just that: my vote. It wasn’t Al Gore’s and it wasn’t the string of third party candidates I voted for, nor was it Obama’s. It was my vote. When I voted third party I didn’t screw you over.

I think getting screwed over is beside the point, but if we’re going to put that terminology to use, people voting first party and second party are the ones doing the screwing for the rest of us. After Obama broke most of his campaign promises around civil liberties and kept us a violent and suspect nation, I refused to vote for him again in 2012.

I should take a hint at “secret ballot,” because I take a ton of shit for it from friends and relations when I say that I’ve not voted for a major candidate. But I’m supposed to hold my nose and not vote my conscience on issues I care about (like, I dunno, not bombing predominantly brown people on the other side of the planet) and care about “your” issues like the Supreme Court. Because pragmatism.

Pragmatism doesn’t seem to fly for a lot of the other ideologies our amorphous end of the spectrum holds dear. Why this one?

And I hate that positioning, too. Yeah, the Supreme Court is also my issue, but it’s like my own compatriots make me damned if I do or damned if I don’t. Because then it comes down to abortion and then I’m told I’m basically voting against a woman’s bodily autonomy. I don’t know…I think those bombed brown people way over there had a right to have bodily autonomy, too, but that’s gone.

There’s a whole load of stuff protected in the Bill of Rights; a lot of it is getting trampled on, abused, or outright ignored. Stupid precedents are being set. And ultimately I believe other civil liberties issues will make solving any of the rest next to impossible in the coming decades if they are not addressed. Which, ultimately is why I hate the discourse because it’s not nuanced and everyone feels forced to make pragmatic choices about what’s most important. Like they are “your” issues or “my” issues.

It doesn’t matter how cogent your arguments may be or how politely you put them, though. If you vote third party, you’re the asshole. Then clearly thoughtful people like Ophelia have to fall back and equivocate and say, oh, well, my vote didn’t count anyway, I don’t live somewhere contested. Fuck that. Own your vote. You don’t need to excuse it. It’s those overwhelmingly larger number of people who voted for the first and second parties who are the problem.

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

There’s an excellent comment on Greta’s post about the Secular Policy Club yesterday that I got permission to quote. The author is Llewelly.

Some of us still have quite vivid memories of how once there was quite a bit of agreement between PZ and most of these folks about the need to generate controversy together. We didn’t end up on different sides because some people sought to create artificial infighting. We ended up on different sides, because, a very serious problem was discovered, and some people suffer from it, while others benefit.

There’s anger and controversy because the issue at hand is a problem that causes a fair amount of harm, and so there’s no way to talk about it accurately without upsetting people … especially those who benefit from the current situation.

When you’ve got problem that benefits some people, while causing other people suffering, those people will not be able to agree, not because of rhetoric, but because of facts. And controversy will result. There’s no way to “work across the aisle” without perpetuating the problem.

When the truth is that certain ideas cause a great deal of harm, you can’t “work across the aisle” with the people who love those ideas, without making the people who love them very upset. That’s why most attempts of atheists to work with religious people have either failed or backfired. Where they’ve succeeded, it’s almost always been with very “liberal” religious people, who have few or no extreme beliefs, and instead have beliefs which say almost nothing about the world. In other words, “working across the aisle” only worked, because all the important differences were already gone.

There’s no “working across the aisle” on slavery, or bigotry, or abortion, or global warming, or sexual assault, or extreme religions, because there’s no way to talk about these problems accurately without saying that some peoples ideas are causing enormous harm.

Tolerance is only good for solving little problems. When it comes to big problems, tolerance can only help perpetuate the problems.

On the nose. This is why the Big Tent idea is so hard to sustain. It’s why groups splinter. It’s why we can’t all just get along.

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

Another source of this “You have to vote for Hillary Clinton” bullshit is William Hamby in a string of public posts on Facebook. You’d think he was James Carville on speed.

A comment on one of his own posts a couple of hours ago for instance:

William Hamby In 2000, 3% of American voters took a vote from Al Gore and gave it to Ralph Nader. Because Al Gore, who would have solar panels on the White House and carbon emissions cut by a third, wasn’t progressive enough.

George W. Bush was “appointed” based on a difference of several hundred votes. Those left defectors elected George Bush. End of story. Noble goals mean shit in politics. Voters must think long term.

No, we didn’t “take” a vote from Al Gore. It wasn’t Al Gore’s vote! Nobody owns all the votes. The Democratic party doesn’t own the votes of all people to the left of the Republicans. Nobody stole a vote from Al Gore and gave it to Ralph Nader, because that’s not the arrangement.

I said that and more, and got an even more frankly coercive response:

[Y]ou’re not wrong that 2000 was a clusterfuck and there’s not a 100% guarantee that the defector Left vote would have given Gore the presidency. It was an election so crooked the UN would have been called in anywhere else.

But you’re wrong that you’re free to vote third party. There is a 0% chance that your third party will win. Zero. That is absolutely certain. There is some possibility greater than zero that defector votes like yours will cost the Democrats the presidency. If that happens, the SCOTUS will be locked conservative for 30 years.

Even if you’re in a deep red or deep blue state, you still have a moral obligation to vote Democrat. National numbers matter. They create either a strong mandate or a weak one.

I’m wrong that I’m free to vote third party!!

No, I’m really not. I am free to vote third party. I’m free to vote whatever party; I’m free to vote for a write-in. The fact that X thinks it’s wrong and reckless and bordering on criminal does not make me not free to do it anyway, so it’s simply not in any sense true that I’m wrong that I’m free to vote third party.

And there was an earlier post shouting at those naughty people who don’t vote for the Democratic presidential candidate:

Christ, I am tired of seeing all this “I won’t vote for Hillary” bullshit. So fucking tired of it.

YOU are responsible for 8 years of Bush. You are responsible for the Democratic Party leaning centrist. Don’t you realize that the Republicans get the entirety of their fringe right vote, and the Democrats don’t get the fringe left? Has it occurred to you that’s one of the reasons Republicans keep winning? Don’t you realize that the Democrats court the middle because you asshole fringe left voters can’t be counted on to vote? Nothing is ever far left enough for you, and they know it, so they don’t even try.

The state of the country is directly because of you. Because of your inability to think long term instead of voting your fucking idealist conscience.

Oddly enough, I don’t find this persuasive.

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

Oy, it’s starting already, the angry shouting from people outraged by the scandalous fact that some people are not excited about Hillary Clinton as a candidate for president and are talking about not voting for her when and if the time comes. It’s the 2000 campaign all over again.

The shout goes like this: the Democratic Party candidate is all there is. You can’t vote for someone to the left of that candidate, because that is taking your vote from the Democratic Party candidate and giving it to that outsider person. That’s reality. You have to submit to it.

There’s one example at Addicting Info:

Unsurprisingly, Hillary Clinton’s announcement on Sunday was met with laments from the left that Hillary is not a “real” progressive and that liberals shouldn’t settle for the “lesser of two evils.” Gee whiz! I wish Warren or Sanders would run!

Yawn. Another round of liberal hand-wringing that will do nothing but leach enthusiasm from a critical race.

Hello? It’s April 2015. The election is more than a year and a half in the future. Clinton has only announced that she’s running; she hasn’t actually sewn up the nomination yet; that won’t happen for more than a year. It’s way too early to start telling us we have to shut up and lump it because she’s all there is.

But anyway that wouldn’t be a good thing to say even if it were the day after the primaries and she the candidate. It’s never a good thing to say. Our votes are our votes, and we are not stealing them from the major party candidate by voting for someone we think better.

Also? We’re not so stupid that we don’t know the obvious facts. We don’t need to be told for the 90 thousandth time that a minority candidate can’t win. We realize that. There’s no need to keep shouting it in our faces.

Is Hillary Clinton the perfect liberal candidate? Of course not. There is no such thing except in the minds of ideologues and children. Every politician ever, including, yes, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, have made compromises or have taken stances that some part of the left will find “problematic.” The Green Party will not magically be immune to lobbyists and influence peddlers. “Voting all the bums out” will not miraculously replace them with paragons of unassailable integrity. It won’t happen. Ever.

Letting an imaginary perfect be the enemy of the tangible good is a sure way to place our country under the yoke of another generation of a conservative pro-business, pro-fundamentalist, pro-hate Supreme Court.

Liberals are the reality-based community. Time to start acting like it and vote for change we can actually achieve.

Or, alternatively, we could vote for the candidate we would like to see win.

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

Originally a comment by Maureen Brian on Be ever tranquil and mild.

What Dawkins et al do, which by my standards – yes, folks, I’m a socialist feminist atheist who uses “rude words” and I have standards! – is worse is that they demand to be treated as leaders because they say they are leaders. A useless project anyway but more damaging than any amount of boisterous argument among intelligent people who are trying to thrash out a number of important questions.

Among the matters they refuse to address are – does this multi-faceted rabble want a formal leadership? does it need one? if it does then is the market driven hierarchical one best suited to the task? have they asked any other atheists? does trying to set up an authoritarian regime before you have secured the territory make sense? does it matter who they’re prepared to get in bed* with to further their hegemony? why go forward with this when even an averagely bright Christian can spot that there are so many questions unaddressed? why choose this particular set of averagely flawed people above any other? what are they getting out of it and is that fair to the rest of us? And so forth.

I am driven back to Alexandra Kollontai who scared the wits out of Lenin with her assertion that until this revolution extends into the bedroom and into the kitchen then it is no revolution. (A paraphrase, not a quote.)

Compared with all that unfinished business, is the telling of the story confided to him by friend in the way she wanted it told, as PZ did, really worth quite so many pixels, quite so many exploding synapses? Does it justify ever more frantic attempts to impose conformity? Should anyone who says they have left religion behind be using the punishment of excommunication?

I say no!

* see Stephanie Zvan

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

Sarah Khan has an excellent public post on Facebook saying it comes from all sides.

Misogyny, objectification & hypocrisy about women on ALL sides. Maajid Nawaz by going to a strip club is happy to pay for women’s objectification for his sexual purposes. If you believe in women’s dignity and rights, you don’t just challenge Islamists’ abuse of women; you challenge all those capitalist corporations and services which seek to make huge profits on the exploitation of women’s bodies and for sex. (I believe in the rights and dignity of sex workers by the way who are regularly abused and denigrated.) You challenge unequal pay. You challenge all the inequalities that continue to exist between men and women in our country.

I suppose most of you have seen the story about Maajid? The Daily Mail reported it last week and he added some points afterward. He went to a strip club, it was his “stag night” (silly expression, and idea); his future wife was fine with it.

On the other hand I have seen how male community leaders and imams have paid for services of prostitutes, who have had secret nikkahs without their first wife’s knowledge and permission, and who silence women’s voices and marginalise them in all walks of life. What I find distasteful is the pretence on ALL sides by those who claim to care about women’s rights but who have been shown to abuse and denigrate women in in one shape or form. Often Muslims say “the West” oppress women by sexualising them; but so do many Muslims on a daily basis. That’s why women have to cover, that’s why women’s voices are allegedly “awrah,” that’s why women should be segregated because women ARE sexual objects and responsibility and blame therefore falls on them. We are told this is because women and women’s sexuality are responsible for the moral fabric of society. Such normalised attitudes yet so wrong.

All sides.

One of the reasons why we set up Inspire was not only to challenge extremism but to address gender discrimination and the abuse of women’s rights and their objectification. And we will continue to do so within Muslim communities but also in wider society too. Hence we support the Everyday Sexism project, and many other women’s campaigns and groups. Which is why I oppose Maajid’s use of strip clubs, but also the deceitful “concerns” of people who have never genuinely supported women’s rights or feminism – but who are now jumping up and down pretending to claim the higher moral ground.

Yeah, religious zealots don’t make the best feminists.

Read the whole thing.

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

Since the core of our Maximum Critic’s case is that we’re too angry and rude and obnoxious, and also unfair to Our Leaders, especially Richard Dawkins, I thought I would take a squiz at RD’s Twitter feed to see how placid and polite and pleasant he is being in contrast to angry rude obnoxious us.

One

Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins 20 hours ago
.@iconoclasmrules @pennjillette This, from Penn, strikes me as philosophically spot on. What flaw has your great philosophical mind found?

Two

Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins 18 hours ago
@impossiblebones @pennjillette Oh for heaven’s sake, how is such crass misunderstanding possible? Impossible bones? Impossibly ridiculous.

Three

Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins · Apr 12
@1Bblthmpr You’ve obviously never read a biology textbook or a book about evolution. Please do so & then come back if you want to argue.

Four

Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins
I know no science, never read a biology book & have low IQ, but I know evolution is false bcos it doesn’t make sense to my uneducated mind.

Five

Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins · Apr 11
@Adnan_Asif14 In the same sense of “theory” gravity too is only a theory. I suggest you test it by jumping out of a high window.

There are plenty of other tweets not in that vein, and some in a similar but less blatant vein. One in a more benevolent vein –

Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins · Apr 11
What kind of “man” ENJOYS shooting birds on spring migration through Malta? Referendum to abolish the “sport” today. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/10/malta-bird-hunting-spring-referendum-animal-welfare …

Also, I’m not opposed to a waspish tone as such. It would be odd if I were, since I have one myself. I think it can be good and necessary to express some anger on some subjects; I think writing and discussion would be badly impoverished if we eliminated all trace of anger. I’m just wondering what it is that makes our Maximum Critic so agitated about our anger and not Dawkins’s anger.

Greta has been wondering much the same thing about the Secular Policy Institute.

Does the “problem” of atheist leaders “getting media attention by causing controversy” include Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Peter Boghossian, or any other fellows in your institute known for making controversial statements, both about religion and about other atheists? Also, does it include Michael Nugent, who in recent months has written 32 blog posts, totaling 75,000 words, criticizing PZ Myers? If not — why not? How do you decide which controversies are acceptable and which are not — and who gets to make that decision?

It’s actually more than 32; it’s 38 or 39 now, although 2 or 3 of those were more about me than about PZ. Since they’re around 4 to 5000 words each, it’s also way more than 75,000 words – though many of them are repeated over and over again, so it’s not that many original words. But you get the idea – 75k words is a very low estimate. Anyway – who is actually causing controversy around here? Is it really only those poopy Freethought bloggers?

No wonder the stereotype of a secular person is condescending and angry.

Do you have a problem with the image of atheists being condescending and angry when it comes to Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Peter Boghossian, or any other fellows in your institute known for their angry, cutting criticism of religion?

That’s what inspired me to go look at RD’s Twitter.

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

For more on this MMS “treatment” one post of many by Orac on the subject:

Let’s recap. MMS is bleach. Specifically, it is a 28% sodium chlorite in distilled water that generates chlorine dioxide when diluted with citric acid-containing or other acid-containing foods, as instructed. This is a chemical used for water purification that a quack—yes, quack—named Jim Humble has touted as a miracle cure for just about everything from cancer to AIDS to a wide variety of conditions, serious and not-so-serious. There is no currently known valid medical reason to give this chemical to anyone to treat anything. None of this is (or should be) in serious dispute from a strictly scientific, medical, or ethical standpoint.

The next fact that is not in serious dispute is that a woman named Kerri Rivera, operating out of a quack clinic in Mexico, has been touting MMS as a “biomedical” treatment for autism. As part of the treatment, she advocates feeding MMS to autistic children every two hours over the course of 72 hours (her “72-2 protocol”) and giving children MMS enemas three times a week. She admits that the side effects included at minimum diarrhea and fever. In fact, she says that the diarrhea is a good thing if it’s “detox diarrhea” and that the fever means the immune system is being stimulated, thus making it a good thing as well. What is also not in dispute is that Rivera brought this message of bleaching autism away to the yearly autism biomed quackfest known as Autism One last month, making even some die-hard supporters of autism quackery cringe. Again, there is currently no known valid medical reason to give this chemical to any autistic child to treat autism. Again, none of this is (or should be) in serious dispute from a scientific standpoint.

It’s terrifying. Why not just claim that razor blades are a “treatment” for autism and asthma and AIDS, or that motor oil is, or rat poison, or Drano, or a knife to the heart?

I’m wondering how people can get away with this.

I’m incorrigibly naïve.

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

Chris Allbritton at the Daily Beast has much more on that Colombian report.

U.S. soldiers and military contractors stationed in Colombia allegedly sexually assaulted as many as 54 Colombian children between 2003 and 2007, according to a report commissioned by the Colombian government and the FARC leftist rebel group. But none of the Americans have been prosecuted because of bilateral agreements and diplomatic immunity, the report alleges.

Spokespeople for the U.S. Army told The Daily Beast that they’ve seen no evidence of such crimes.

How astonishing! When things were set up so that responsible officials wouldn’t see evidence of such crimes, how astonishing to learn that they haven’t seen any.

The section detailing American involvement in the conflict was edited by Renán Vega Cantor, a leftist professor of history at la Universidad Pedagógica Nacional de Bogotá.

“In Melgar and neighboring Girardot,” he wrote, “53 minors were sexually abused by mercenaries, who also filmed and sold the tapes as pornographic material. Also in Melgar, a contractor and a sergeant in the United States raped a 12-year-old girl in 2007. Both their activities, as well as their immunity, contribute to the insecurity of the population in conflict zones.”

“There is abundant evidence of sexual violence and total impunity, thanks to bilateral agreements and diplomatic immunity of U.S. officials,” Vega continued, “part of sexist and discriminatory behavior known as ‘sexual imperialism’ similar to what happens in other places where U.S. military forces are stationed.”

The Army spokesperson said the Army had seen no credible evidence of this but an investigation is possible.

Military cooperation between Colombia and the United States goes back decades—and has long given American troops diplomatic immunity. A 1974 Military Missions Agreement grants “United States personnel and their dependents the privileges, exemptions, and immunities accorded to the administrative and technical staff of a diplomatic mission under the Vienna Convention.”

But that cooperation was radically expanded under Plan Colombia, Washington’s $7.5 billion program to help Bogota fight drug cartels and leftist rebel groups like the FARC and National Liberation Army, or ELN.

Because US troops never get carried away, never punish civilians in any way, never rape, never conceal rape…and once again I find myself on the throne of Marie of Romania.

In the most explosive allegations in Colombia, Vega wrote, up to 54 young women and children were allegedly drugged and taken back to bases, where in some cases the abuse was alleged to have been filmed and sold as pornography. In the most notorious case, Colombian prosecutors accused a U.S. Army soldier and a defense contractor of drugging and raping a 12-year-old girl in 2007 after taking her back to a military base in Melgar where they were stationed.

The alleged victim’s mother recently told El Tiempo, Colombia’s biggest daily newspaper, that on the evening of Aug. 26, 2007, her two daughters, 12 and 10, went to buy food in downtown Melgar. A couple of hours later, the younger daughter returned alone, saying her older sister had disappeared after going into a nightclub to use the bathroom. The two U.S. military men left her in a park the next morning, according to several witnesses, El Tiempo reported at the time.

Afterward, the mother went to the base to confront the men who she says raped her daughter. “The response was, ‘Your daughter is a little whore; nothing happened here,’” she told El Tiempo.

According to McClatchy, the two men were not arrested. Instead, they were flown out of the country under diplomatic immunity and have never been prosecuted despite attempts by Colombian prosecutors.

I had this idea that diplomatic immunity didn’t cover rape and other violent crimes. I thought that was why Strauss-Kahn was arrestable, for instance. Also, soldiers are not diplomats.

It’s a problem the United States military faces around the world. There are hundreds of cases of alleged sexual assault of civilians by U.S. military personnel and contractors in Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and elsewhere. However, American personnel are rarely disciplined under the local legal systems and often receive little more than letters of reprimand from the chain of command.

How very colonial.

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

Speaking of rape, and denial, and cover-ups…the International Business Times reports:

The U.S. Army has pledged to investigate recently resurfaced allegations that American soldiers and contractors sexually abused more than 50 Colombian minors in the mid-2000s, weeks after the accusations appeared in a report on the Colombian government’s battle against rebel militias.

Colombia’s Historical Commission on Conflict released a landmark 800-page report in February detailing the government’s fight against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a guerrilla group that engaged in a 50-year conflict with state forces. One section of the report focused on the U.S. military’s assistance to Colombia’s government in its efforts and noted harrowing accounts of rape and sexual abuse against underage Colombian girls.

Very nice of the US Army to take notice at last. It would have been even nicer to have taken notice of it at the time, but hey, these are men in power, and underage Colombian girls just don’t count.

“There is abundant information of sexual violence with total impunity, thanks to bilateral accords and diplomatic immunity to U.S. officials,” the report stated. In the towns of Melgar and Girardot, 70 miles from Bogotá, U.S. military workers allegedly abused 53 girls, recorded the acts and sold the footage as pornographic videos, the report said.

Good old American ingenuity and efficiency, eh? Entrepreneurship at its finest. First they get a free fuck with a nice tight little girl, then they get to sell the video. Score!

Although the report called it one of the most “notorious” cases of sexual violence of that time, Colombian media outlets began amplifying the allegations in the report in late March. On Friday the U.S. Army confirmed it would investigate the situation along with Colombian officials. “We take this issue very seriously and will aggressively pursue all credible allegations,” Chris Grey, a spokesman for the Army’s criminal investigation unit, told USA Today.

Don’t lie, you fuckers. Obviously you do not take this issue very seriously or you would have aggressively pursued all credible allegations at the time.

(Am I going to get a scolding now for calling them fuckers and accusing them of lying? Ok I’ll fix it. Make that fucking fuckers who are fucking lying, the fuckers.)

Brace yourselves for this next bit; it’s nasty.

One case highlighted in the report, in which a U.S. military contractor and sergeant allegedly raped a 12-year-old Colombian girl in 2007, is well known in Colombia. Last month Colombian newspaper El Tiempo spoke with the girl’s mother, Olga Lucia Castillo, remarking that “half the country knows of her tragedy.”

Castillo told the newspaper her daughter was “never the same” after the incident. “When I was finally able to establish that the girl had been raped, we tried to find who was responsible and, despite the pain that overwhelmed us, I found them at the base and confronted them,” she said. “Their response was: ‘Your daughter is a little whore; nothing has happened here.’ ” Castillo said her daughter, now 20, has attempted suicide three times and rarely speaks or leaves the house.

Does the US Army take that “very seriously”? If it does, why did it respond that way? Why has it done nothing in the 8 years since?

All the little whores want to know.

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

Having reminded myself of that piece of sadistic officiousness by Mrs Norris, I might as well share it. It’s from chapter 15 of Mansfield Park, again via Project Gutenberg. Edmund and Maria are arguing about the propriety of Acting in a Play when Mrs Norris adds her bit.

________________________________

In a few minutes Mr. Bertram was called out of the room to satisfy some doubts of the carpenter; and being accompanied by Mr. Yates, and followed soon afterwards by Mr. Rushworth, Edmund almost immediately took the opportunity of saying, “I cannot, before Mr. Yates, speak what I feel as to this play, without reflecting on his friends at Ecclesford; but I must now, my dear Maria, tell you, that I think it exceedingly unfit for private representation, and that I hope you will give it up. I cannot but suppose you will when you have read it carefully over. Read only the first act aloud to either your mother or aunt, and see how you can approve it. It will not be necessary to send you to your father’s judgment, I am convinced.”

“We see things very differently,” cried Maria. “I am perfectly acquainted with the play, I assure you; and with a very few omissions, and so forth, which will be made, of course, I can see nothing objectionable in it; and I am not the only young woman you find who thinks it very fit for private representation.”

“I am sorry for it,” was his answer; “but in this matter it is you who are to lead. You must set the example. If others have blundered, it is your place to put them right, and shew them what true delicacy is. In all points of decorum your conduct must be law to the rest of the party.”

This picture of her consequence had some effect, for no one loved better to lead than Maria; and with far more good-humour she answered, “I am much obliged to you, Edmund; you mean very well, I am sure: but I still think you see things too strongly; and I really cannot undertake to harangue all the rest upon a subject of this kind. There would be the greatest indecorum, I think.”

“Do you imagine that I could have such an idea in my head? No; let your conduct be the only harangue. Say that, on examining the part, you feel yourself unequal to it; that you find it requiring more exertion and confidence than you can be supposed to have. Say this with firmness, and it will be quite enough. All who can distinguish will understand your motive. The play will be given up, and your delicacy honoured as it ought.”

“Do not act anything improper, my dear,” said Lady Bertram. “Sir Thomas would not like it.—Fanny, ring the bell; I must have my dinner.—To be sure, Julia is dressed by this time.”

“I am convinced, madam,” said Edmund, preventing Fanny, “that Sir Thomas would not like it.”

“There, my dear, do you hear what Edmund says?”

“If I were to decline the part,” said Maria, with renewed zeal, “Julia would certainly take it.”

“What!” cried Edmund, “if she knew your reasons!”

“Oh! she might think the difference between us—the difference in our situations—that she need not be so scrupulous as I might feel necessary. I am sure she would argue so. No; you must excuse me; I cannot retract my consent; it is too far settled, everybody would be so disappointed, Tom would be quite angry; and if we are so very nice, we shall never act anything.”

“I was just going to say the very same thing,” said Mrs. Norris. “If every play is to be objected to, you will act nothing, and the preparations will be all so much money thrown away, and I am sure that would be a discredit to us all. I do not know the play; but, as Maria says, if there is anything a little too warm (and it is so with most of them) it can be easily left out. We must not be over-precise, Edmund. As Mr. Rushworth is to act too, there can be no harm. I only wish Tom had known his own mind when the carpenters began, for there was the loss of half a day’s work about those side-doors. The curtain will be a good job, however. The maids do their work very well, and I think we shall be able to send back some dozens of the rings. There is no occasion to put them so very close together. I am of some use, I hope, in preventing waste and making the most of things. There should always be one steady head to superintend so many young ones. I forgot to tell Tom of something that happened to me this very day. I had been looking about me in the poultry-yard, and was just coming out, when who should I see but Dick Jackson making up to the servants’ hall-door with two bits of deal board in his hand, bringing them to father, you may be sure; mother had chanced to send him of a message to father, and then father had bid him bring up them two bits of board, for he could not no how do without them. I knew what all this meant, for the servants’ dinner-bell was ringing at the very moment over our heads; and as I hate such encroaching people (the Jacksons are very encroaching, I have always said so: just the sort of people to get all they can), I said to the boy directly (a great lubberly fellow of ten years old, you know, who ought to be ashamed of himself), ‘I’ll take the boards to your father, Dick, so get you home again as fast as you can.’ The boy looked very silly, and turned away without offering a word, for I believe I might speak pretty sharp; and I dare say it will cure him of coming marauding about the house for one while. I hate such greediness—so good as your father is to the family, employing the man all the year round!”

Nobody was at the trouble of an answer; the others soon returned; and Edmund found that to have endeavoured to set them right must be his only satisfaction.

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

Authorities in Ireland are questioning parents of autistic children as part of an investigation into a “controversial” treatment.

The substance, known as Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS), is an industrial-strength bleach which its advocates claim acts as a miracle cure for a number of medical conditions, including autism, asthma, Aids, malaria and ebola.

Also Crohn’s, I think – if I remember correctly that’s what got Rhys Morgan involved in skepticism.

Fiona O’Leary, an Irish woman who has single-handedly mounted a campaign against a group led by Jim Humble — a former Scientologist and self-styled archbishop of the Genesis II Church of Health and Healing — said there is need for urgent legislation in Ireland to deter parents from subjecting their children to treatment with MMS.

Bleach. The mind totters and sways; it collapses.

Ms O’Leary believes it is unlikely that any parents will face criminal prosecution as a result of the Garda investigation, but says some sanction needs to be put in place to prevent vulnerable children being forced to take bleach, either orally or as an enema.

…

The need for such legislation, argues Ms O’Leary, is because MMS promoters have been able to circumvent regulations governing the sale and supply of medicines by describing the product, whose constituent ingredients are perfectly legal, as a water purifier.

The mother of five, who lives in West Cork, said she was shocked by the results of laboratory tests on MMS conducted as part of an RTÉ PrimeTime documentary broadcast last week. They showed the main ingredient of MMS — sodium chlorite — had concentrations up to 520 times over the daily limit recommended by the World Health Organisation.

Hey, no more than you would get from swimming in a chlorinated pool for…oh, a thousand years or so.

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

More art via @Penamerican

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

The Irish Independent reports that the pope is said to have rejected the nomination of a close aide of President François Hollande as new French ambassador to the Vatican because he is gay.

The apparent rejection calls into question the Pontiff’s reputation as holding more liberal views on homosexuality.

Laurent Stefanini (54), a senior diplomat and Mr Hollande’s chief of protocol, was nominated in early January but the Vatican had maintained a stony silence over whether it accepts his credentials, officials in Paris said.

The usual time frame for acceptance is a month and a half. After that, a prolonged silence after a nomination is normally interpreted as a rejection.

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