The news from Egypt is appalling. The Islamist Morsi has granted himself the power to do anything he wants to do without any hindrance from courts.

President Mohamed Morsi issued a decree on Thursday granting himself broad powers above any court as the guardian of Egypt’s revolution, and used his new authority to order the retrial of Hosni Mubarak.

Mr. Morsi, an Islamist and Egypt’s first elected president, portrayed his decree as an attempt to fulfill popular demands for justice and protect the transition to a constitutional democracy. But the unexpected breadth of the powers he seized raised immediate fears that he might become a new strongman.

Ya think?

“An absolute presidential tyranny,” Amr Hamzawy, a liberal member of the dissolved Parliament and prominent political scientist, wrote in an online commentary. “Egypt is facing a horrifying coup against legitimacy and the rule of law and a complete assassination of the democratic transition.”

It’s so…basic. It trashes the whole point of being “Egypt’s first elected president” and talk of “a constitutional democracy.” This fancy idea of “electing” people? It’s supposed to entail accountability, and limits on power, and stuff like that.

Nathan J. Brown, a scholar of the Egyptian legal system at George Washington University, summed up the overall message: “I, Morsi, am all powerful. And in my first act as being all powerful, I declare myself more powerful still. But don’t worry — it’s just for a little while.”

The BBC reports that Morsi is saying there there there it will be fine.

President Mohammed Mursi has appeared before supporters in Cairo to defend a new decree that grants him sweeping powers.

He told them he was leading Egypt on a path to “freedom and democracy” and was the guardian of stability.

He was speaking as thousands of opponents gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and offices of the president’s party were attacked in several cities.

The decree says presidential decisions cannot be revoked by any authority.

What could possibly go wrong?

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

From the C of E we drift over to the Houses of Parliament in all their Victorian Gothic splendor. What’s going on there? An influential committee is taking advice on women from Steve Moxon. Victoria would be proud – she hated feminists.

Women are biologically unfit to rise to the top in business, according a self-described academic speaking before an influential parliamentary committee.

Steve Moxon, author of ‘The Woman Racket’, appeared at the business select committee on Wednesday as part of an inquiry into “women in the workplace”.

A  self-described academic? What’s that? Self-description isn’t what determines who is an academic. It’s more external and objective than that.

Moxon, ranked one of the ten most powerful people in ‘men’s rights’ by website ‘theantifeminist’, was dropped as a UKIP candidate in local elections for expressing sympathy with Norwegian mass-killer Anders Breivik on his blog earlier this year, and has also described claims against Jimmy Savile as “hysteria”.

Just the right sort of person to tell an influential parliamentary committee what’s what when it comes to women in the workplace. Or to put it another way, huh? What were they listening to him for?

Giving evidence to the committee he said males were in a “dominant hierarchy” from toddlerhood.

“You can pretend that the sexes are all the same but if you go looking … females form what is generally dubbed a personal network,” he said.

“There’s no surprise that women have difficulty in the work place, not only do they have difficulty but they don’t want to be there in the first place!” he said.

He then claimed that the gender pay gap should be bigger, telling MPs “there must be referencing for it to be as small as it is.”

It’s an outrage.

In his written submission to the inquiry, Moxon suggests women may not even want “to climb the workplace hierarchy”, adding that the push toward gender equality risked producing discrimination “against men.”

Ah yes, I’ve been seeing people claim that lately – that feminism doesn’t want equality, it wants discrimination against men. I think that comes from men who think it’s discriminatory to expect men to do an equal share of housework.

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

Jesus and Mo are also discussing the C of E vote to say no women bishops. Jesus is quite frank about it.

The new book makes a great Xmas present. It gots a foreword by Dawkins.

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

Teresa MacBain tells us about a disturbing law in Kentucky.

On August 17, 2012, the Kentucky Supreme Court refused to hear a motion for discretionary review, brought by American Atheists and local plaintiffs, to a state law that makes it mandatory that the Commonwealth and its citizens give credit to Almighty God for its safety and security.  This request was denied in a single line that said that the “…Petition for Discretionary Review is denied.”  Signed, Chief Justice, Kentucky Supreme Court. The law states, “The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God as set forth in the public speeches and proclamations of American Presidents, including AbrahamLincoln’s historic March 30, 1863, presidential proclamation urging Americans to pray and fast during one of the most dangerous hours in American history, and the text of President John F. Kennedy’s November 22, 1963, national security speech which concluded: “For as was written long ago: ‘Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.’”

How farking crazy is that? “As set forth in the public speeches and proclamations of American Presidents” – what, because US presidents have the magical ability to create reality with their public speeches and proclamations? What they say becomes True as soon as they say it, because they say it?

I hope American Atheists and local plaintiffs win.

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

Let’s try this again. I keep seeing discussions of Chris Stedman and his new book that complain of how personal and hostile and unfair the criticisms of him are. Let’s see if I can spell out my dissent without sounding (or even being) personal and hostile and unfair. Religion News Service has an interview with him, so that provides an occasion.

On the blog NonProphet Status, and now in the book, Stedman calls for atheists and the religious to come together around interfaith work. It is a position that has earned him both strident — even violent — condemnation and high praise. Stedman talked with RNS about how and why the religious and atheists should work together.

One. Calling for atheists and the religious to come together around interfaith work seems to me (and others) to be a strange project, because it seems to be a rejection of the very idea of basic disagreement. On the one hand, atheists and the religious already do unite to work together in various contexts, because that’s just how these things work. People work on various things without interrogating each other about beliefs and world views. There’s no need to stipulate that atheists and theists work together; they’ll do that on their own. On the other hand, if he does mean that people should make a big thing about being one or the other and getting together around some kind of work – then I really don’t see why I have to. I’m happy to shut up about my atheism and do things with other people who shut up about their theism. I’m not happy to do a big “let’s weave the two together” dance.

Am I getting too personal and hostile and unfair already? Maybe. Maybe. I think that’s because I never can manage to grasp exactly what Stedman has in mind. I don’t understand why he’s not satisfied with the fact that atheists and theists do naturally work together all the time, just as liberals and conservatives do, women and men do, gays and straights do, tall people and short people do. I don’t understand why he wants to take that first step of having everyone identify as one or the other – atheist or theist – and then make a big deal of working together.

That first step is what makes the whole thing so dubious. If theism and atheism are just left aside, then we can work together. If they’re made central – then I have disagreements, dammit, and no I’m not willing to suppress them.

And then there’s interfaith work. Again: no. Work, yes; interfaith work, no. Why does it have to be interfaith work? Why can’t it just be work?

Two. This is the interviewer’s doing, not Stedman’s. Violent is the wrong word to use. It’s offensively wrong. Strong, even strident disagreement with Stedman isn’t violent.

Q: What does the term “faitheist” mean? Is it a positive label or a derisive one?
A: It’s one of several words used by some atheists to describe other atheists who are seen as too accommodating of religion. But to me, being a faitheist means that I prioritize the pursuit of common ground, and that I’m willing to put “faith” in the idea that religious believers and atheists can and should focus on areas of agreement and work in broad coalitions to advance social justice.

Ok. Here’s where we differ. There already is plenty of common ground. But there is also substantive disagreement, and that had been as it were de-prioritized for a long time before the recent renaissance of outspoken atheism. It is only in the last few years (at least in the US) that it has become somewhat normal for atheists to say how and why they differ from and disagree with theists. I think that’s a healthy shift, and I find it unfortunate that other atheists already think it necessary to “prioritize” what was already the conformist majoritarian approach, which was not so much the pursuit of common ground as the dominance of one view at the expense of the other. Prioritizing the pursuit of common ground, in a country where the vast majority is religious and where religion is in some ways compulsory, is really just prioritizing the continued dominance of the majority view.

In other words I don’t want to focus on areas of agreement, because that was all that was available to me for years and years until quite recently. Saying that people with differing views should focus on areas of agreement frankly amounts to an endorsement of whatever the status quo majority view is. It’s a way of saying hide your dissenting views. It’s that dressed up as being kinder than other people. I have problems with all of that.

Some people have suggested I think atheists shouldn’t critique harmful religious beliefs, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

But that doesn’t work. Saying that “religious believers and atheists can and should focus on areas of agreement” is saying that atheists shouldn’t critique harmful religious beliefs. The areas of agreement obviously rule out things like criticism of harmful religious beliefs.

Maybe Stedman doesn’t realize that. Maybe he doesn’t recognize a tension between his avowed project and a commitment to open criticism of harmful religious beliefs. There is such a tension.

Q: You write that the atheist community is often defined by the “New Atheists” and their aggressive stance against religion. Isn’t the term atheist a negative by definition?

A: When I first became active in the atheist movement, I was taken aback by the degree of hostility I saw directed toward religion and, in many cases, religious believers. It has often felt to me that atheism and anti-theism are treated as synonyms by many segments of the atheist community, when they are in fact different.

You see there it is again. Hostility toward religion is and ought to be permitted. Stedman dislikes it. Ok but then he ought to admit that, and realize that he does indeed think atheists shouldn’t critique harmful religious beliefs.

Q: If atheists by definition don’t have faith, why should they seek to be included in interfaith work?

A: Interfaith work seeks to humanize religious diversity and erode tribalistic divisions. It promotes religious literacy and freedom of expression and conscience, and if atheists don’t participate, we risk not being included in interfaith efforts’ vision for a pluralistic world. The term “interfaith” may be imperfect, but in my experience it does not exclude atheists — and when it does, that’s something we should work to change.

But if what you’re talking about is actually pluralism, then it would be better to call it that.

There. My attempt to be impersonal, non-hostile, and fair.

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

Tim Farley’s eagerly-awaited post on desperately tracking Mabus.

This post is the story of how those posts once again led to Markuze’s arrest by the Montreal Police. As in 2011 it took quite a bit of work to make this happen. Tedious, painstaking, often thankless work.  But this is the type of work skeptic activists need to be ready to do in order to get results.

Really – incredibly tedious and painstaking. I find it tedious just taking a screenshot; the thought of tracking down endless IP addresses makes me want to run away and join the circus. Thank you Tim. (Remember – Tim also did the tedious work of finding and talking to the guy who sent me those two weird emails last June. [You know: the ones that included, at the end of the second one, a prediction that I would be shot at TAM; the part that Justin Vacula left out on his podcast when he poured scorn on the idea that I had received any threats at all.] I have good reason to be grateful to him.)

Tim goes through the details, and then arrives at the outcome, last May.

Markuze Pleads Guilty on May 22, 2012

Because of the sparse communication from Montreal, we had no idea that these YouTube posts in May were coming just days before Markuze was scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday, May 22, 2012.  And again we heard nothing about that until an article appeared in the Montreal Gazette on Friday, June 1st titled “St. Laurent man pleads guilty to issuing threats.”  I’d link to the article, but it is no longer available online. (Yet another reason newspapers continue to get trounced by new media – they keep trashing or paywalling content like this that could be bringing people to their site).

The gist was that Markuze pled guilty to eight counts of “uttering threats,” and was given a suspended 18-month sentence as a result. He was ordered to “abstain from particpating in a social network, blog and discussion forum” as part of the sentence.

Ordered to, but that turned out to mean…nothing much. Nobody made sure he obeyed, and by golly, he didn’t.

Needless to say, many of us were disappointed in this outcome, and particularly that we had to learn about it from the newspaper.  We wanted to ensure that Markuze would get good treatment and supervision, which he clearly needs. This report doesn’t give one confidence that was going to happen.

Supervision, so that he wouldn’t…you know…put the threats into action.

So…he went back to his old habits, and Tim did lots more tedious work to help the police see what he was doing, and finally he was arrested again.

I got a call from Paul Cherry, who told me that Markuze had been arrested on Friday November 16, 2012, arraigned on Saturday and released on Monday pending a hearing. You can read the rest of the details in his account in the Gazette.

There are other news accounts including Ars Technica, CTV News Montreal, Canadian Civil Liberties Association and of course Doubtful News.

On Tuesday morning I got a call from the detective. She thanked me for my help but apologized a bit for the court’s decision to release him.  She said, “I’m a little bit discouraged” by the court’s decision.  I hope this is not a sign we are headed down the same path again.

Sigh. Yes. And then there’s Eschaton, just up the road.

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

Meanwhile, from the guys in purple shirts – the general synod of the Church of England has voted against allowing the appointment of women as bishops.

Well you know how it is. It’s who wants to stand up and talk about it, go on shows about it, go to conferences and speak about it, who’s intellectually active about it; you know, it’s more of a guy thing. Women aren’t so good at that. Women prefer to sit down and not talk about it. They prefer to stay home and not speak about it and to be intellectually inactive about it. Women are timid and quiet and tongue-tied and lazy. They don’t make good bishops.

No, I’m playing silly buggers, that’s not it. It’s tradition. It’s conscience. It’s Jesus and the disciples. It’s beards. It’s throwing like a girl. It’s the voice of authority. It’s Real Bishops of Beverly Hills. It’s testosterone. It’s two thousand years of. It’s who would do the wifey part? It’s what if the baby cried in the middle of the sermon?

It’s all of those. Or one of them. Or something. Whatever it takes.

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

Dr Jen Gunter has a terrific post today on Savita Halappanavar – yes, another one. It starts with the fact that the hospital was checking fetal heart tones, not once, but several times a day. That’s a tell.

Fetal heart tones are not checked with any medical purpose in mind until viability (around 23-24 weeks). The presence of fetal heart tones was irrelevant because survival of a baby at 17 weeks with ruptured membranes and/or advanced cervical dilation is impossible. Ms. Halappanavar was not 22 weeks pregnant where there might be a 3% chance of survival (depending on weight, sex of the baby, gestational age, whether it is a singleton or a multiple gestation etc). At 17 weeks with ruptured membranes, regardless of cervical dilation, this pregnancy could only end in with a fetal demise. In a study from 2006, when membranes ruptured at 21 weeks or less the outcome was “dismal.” In fact, in this study there were no survivors when membranes ruptured between 18 and 19 weeks. Whether a fetus has cardiac activity at 17 weeks with ruptured membranes and a dilated cervix is simply not part of the medical decision making tree.

And then there’s the risk of infection. The hospital was checking the fetal heart when that was completely futile, while not doing what needed to be done about the infection that developed.

We know why. Catholic hospitals in the US do the same thing.

Jen Gunter continues.

I’m told that while Irish law technically allows abortion to save the life of the mother, many practitioners fear recrimination and exactly when the life of the mother is “at risk” is a murky question. I can easily argue that Savita’s life was at risk the moment her membranes ruptured at 17 weeks. However, does Irish law mean a different kind of risk? And if so, how would doctors judge that risk to be present? Ruptured membranes and fever? Shaking chills? Bacteria in the amniotic fluid? Positive blood cultures? Sepsis? Cardiovascular collapse? How sick must a pregnant woman be in Ireland be for a doctor to state that her life is at risk?

Whether the delay in Ms. Halappanavar’s care was fear of criminal repercussions or personal dogma, both of these scenarios are permitted to exist because of laws that trounce evidence based medicine. Her husband’s claim that Irish law played a role rings true because the team was checking for fetal heart tones when the only vital signs that mattered were Savita’s.

And it’s not just Irish law that does this. It’s the ”Ethical and Religious Directives” governing Catholic health care that do it in the US.

Hospitals are Required by Law to provide the Standard of Care, [6] Yet Hospitals Fail to do so Because of their Adherence to the Directives.

In some of the miscarriage cases described in the Ibis Study, the standard of care requires immediate treatment. Yet doctors practicing at Catholic-affiliated hospitals were forced to delay treatment while performing medically unnecessary tests. Even though these miscarriages were inevitable and no medical treatment was available to save the fetus, some patients were transferred because doctors could still detect a fetal heartbeat or required to wait until there was no longer a fetal heartbeat to provide the needed medical care. 

Italics added. That’s not Ireland, that’s the US.

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

The Montreal Gazette reports on Dennis Markuze. The headline is good.

Man charged with threatening people using social media — again

Yes exactly: again. He was charged with it before, he was released on condition that he not do it again, he did it again. A lot.

A Saint-Laurent man has been charged, again, with abusing social media to  threaten people who express their views online.

Dennis Markuze, 40, faces three new charges, including one alleging he  violated the conditions of a sentence he received in May for the same offence.  He was also charged with threatening the Montreal police officer who was  investigating claims from several of Markuze’s past victims. Those victims  alleged that Markuze’s threats have intensified in recent months.

In May, Markuze received an 18-month suspended sentence after pleading guilty  to uttering threats toward eight people he believed to be atheists. The court  was told Markuze’s problems could be attributed to drug consumption, which  caused him to believe he was “the Voice of God.” As part of his sentence, he was  ordered to “abstain from participating in a social network, blog and discussion  forum.” But during the summer, several people contacted The Gazette to report  that Markuze appeared to be ignoring the court order.

Ignoring it as if it had never happened. Threat threat threat, threat threat threat threat threat threat.

Tim Farley told the cops this, and they said “what court order?”

But they get it now. They know there was a court order. They’re all over it.

Markuze appeared before a judge at the Montreal courthouse on Monday where he was released after agreeing to a series of conditions, including that he not  communicate with Farley.

Um………….

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

Damn. Kevin Clash has resigned. That’s sad.

Mr. Clash has played Elmo on “Sesame Street” for decades. He was profiled in a documentary last year, “Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey.”

That documentary is why I know about him, as it probably is for a lot of people. He seems like an outstanding human being.

It looks as if Sesame Street, or PBS, or both, simply threw him to the wolves.

Last week, Sesame Workshop said the first man’s accusations were unfounded. The organization did not have any immediate comment about the second man’s lawsuit on Tuesday. But in a statement, it said:

Sesame Workshop’s mission is to harness the educational power of media to help all children the world over reach their highest potential. Kevin Clash has helped us achieve that mission for 28 years, and none of us, especially Kevin, want anything to divert our attention from our focus on serving as a leading educational organization. Unfortunately, the controversy surrounding Kevin’s personal life has become a distraction that none of us want, and he has concluded that he can no longer be effective in his job and has resigned from Sesame Street. This is a sad day for Sesame Street.

Chickenshits.

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

The Telegraph informs us that Anjem Choudary has plans to “announce a fatwa” on Malala Yousufzai later this year.

What?

Anjem Choudary lives in London on state benefit and issues periodic “announcements” of this and that as if he had an army at his command. What does it mean for some random asshole to say he has plans to “announce a fatwa” on a teenage girl he doesn’t know? I could say I have plans to move into a penthouse on Central Park West, but that wouldn’t make it happen.

Whatever. Choudary has been getting attention from the media by saying ludicrously murderous things for years. It’s a thing.

Later this month, hardliners plan to gather at the notorious Red Mosque in Islamabad to denounce her as an apostate, accusing her of turning her back on Islam.

Anjem Choudary, who lives in East London and is one of the founders of al-Muhajiroun, which was banned in 2010, said the conference would announce the fatwa.

Although apostasy carries the death sentence according to Islamic law, he insisted he was not calling for Malalaﾒs death.

“It’s not a death sentence,” he said. “It’s about what is the reality of what’s taking place and how she is being used as a tool for propaganda by the US and Pakistan, and for the crimes they are committing.”

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

This just in.

Police Montréal‏@SPVM

D.Markuze was arrested for social media harassment (breach of probation). Thanks to those who helped with the investigation #Mabus#SPVM

Well hallelujah.

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

India is still in a committed relationship with censorship. The Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray died on Saturday, and Bombay was shut down by way of farewell.

On Sunday, the police in Palghar, in Thane district, on the outskirts of Mumbai, arrested Shaheen Dhadha after she posted a status update on Facebook that questioned the shutdown, also known as a bandh. A local daily, the Mumbai Mirror, reported that Ms. Dhadha, 21, had written, “People like Thackeray are born and die daily and one should not observe a bandh for that.” The police also arrested her friend who “liked” the post, whom NDTV identified by her first name, Renu.

Got that? The head of a far-right Hindutva political party died, Bombay closed down for 30 hours as a result, and a young woman posted on Facebook questioning the closing down. She was arrested and so was someone who clicked “Like” on her post.

It’s madness.

The two women, who were sentenced to 14 days in jail by the court, received bail after a bond of 15,000 rupees ($270) was paid, reported NDTV.

The Times of India reported that a mob of 2,000 Shiv Sena workers vandalized her uncle’s orthopedic clinic in Palghar. Repeated calls made to the Dhada orthopedic hospital in Thane went unanswered, while Harshal Pradhan, a Shiv Sena spokesman, said that he was unaware of the incident.

Religious fascism everywhere we look. Golden Dawn, Shiv Sena, the priests in Ireland, the zealots in the US, Boko Haram, the mullahs in Iran…It’s everywhere.

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

The new issue of Free Inquiry is out. It has a special section on the Women in Secularism conference. I did an article for that section, based on my part at the conference but not restricted to it. It is online.

The basic idea is that the stereotypical idea of women is not very well suited for overt rebellion against god.

The main stereotype in play, let’s face it, is that women are too stupid to do nontheism. Unbelieving in God is thinky work, and women don’t do thinky, because “that’s a guy thing.”

Don’t laugh: Michael Shermer said exactly that during a panel discussion on the online talk-show The Point. The host, Cara Santa Maria, presented a question: Why isn’t the gender split in atheism closer to 50-50? Shermer explained, “It’s who wants to stand up and talk about it, go on shows about it, go to conferences and speak about it, who’s intellectually active about it; you know, it’s more of a guy thing.”

It’s all there—women don’t do thinky, they don’t speak up, they don’t talk at conferences, they don’t get involved—it’s “a guy thing,” like football and porn and washing the car.

Dude, your shit was in our way. It’s as if you’ve never heard of the self-fulfilling prophecy. That seems impossible for a skeptic, but there you go – dudely skeptics seem to misplace their skepticism when explaining why you don’t see so many women in the Atheist Clubhouse. No, it’s not because it’s more of a guy thing; it’s because so many people think it’s more of a guy thing and keep saying so and keep forgetting about the many many women who do stand up and talk about it, go on shows about it, go to conferences and speak about it, be intellectually active about it. (Can you say “do be”? No. But sometimes you need to, so I do it anyway.)

It’s not more of a guy thing. Move the fuck over, and you’ll find that out.

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