Why aren’t there any female characters in this new video game? Well because it would be too much trouble, that’s why. It would take too long. It would be too difficult.

So says Ubisoft about the new Assassin’s Creed.

The next game in the Assassin’s Creed series will not allow you to play as a female character because it would have “doubled the work” for the game’s developer Ubisoft. Speaking to VideoGamer, Ubisoft technical director James Therien said female assassins were on the company’s feature list until “not too long ago,” but were cut as a matter of “focus and production.”

“A female character means that you have to redo a lot of animation,” Therien said, defending the exclusion by saying it was “not a question of philosophy or choice.” Ubisoft’s Bruno St. Andre estimated that a female assassin would’ve necessitated more than 8,000 new animations recreated on a new skeletal structure, but said that playable female characters were “dear to the production team.”

No that’s a good point. It’s the same with work places – you have to add all these new toilets, so it’s much better just to not hire women at all. Simpler. Easier. Cheaper. Just better in every way.

Assassin’s Creed: Unity is set during the French Revolution, and allows players to take part in four-player co-operative missions in which they always see themselves as the game’s star, Arno Dorian, and their companions as alternate male assassins. Speaking toPolygon, creative director Alex Amancio, said this was the reason Ubisoft decided not include women as playable characters. “The common denominator was Arno,” Amancio said. “It’s not like we could cut our main character, so the only logical option, the only option we had, was to cut the female avatar.”

Absolutely. It’s not like you can ever cut a male character, and it’s not like you can ever have a female main character – so you see how it is. There’s just no room left for a female character, much as everyone would love to have one.

Some of the world’s most successful studios have come under fire in recent years for their gender representations. Rockstar Games’ Dan Houser justified the fact that none of Grand Theft Auto V‘s three protagonists were women last year by saying “the concept of being masculine was so key to this story,” while Chris Perna, art director for Gears of War developer Epic Games, suggested at a similar time that games with female lead characters would be “tough to justify” on the basis of sales figures.

Well exactly. This is what I’m saying. Male is normal, female is weird. Which are you gonna go with? Well all right then.

The concept of being masculine is so key to every story, and the concept of not being feminine is obviously so equally key to every story, that there’s no way to justify having female characters because let’s face it, everybody hates women.

Many have queried how the vast production, with hundreds of workers split between nine studios across the world, can’t spare the resources to make female characters.

Because that would take time away from making male characters, and nobody wants female characters anyway. Get real!

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

Oh, Andrew Brown. Wrong in the very first sentence.

He’s writing about the Tuam babies.

Why is it that we are more shocked by what happens to dead babies than to live ones?

We’re not.

There, that’s done; no need to write the rest of that piece.

But of course he did write it.

The story that almost 800 dead babies were buried in a disused sewage tank outside Tuamin rural Ireland turns out to be problematic. It is certain that 796 babies did die under the care of nuns in a home for unmarried mothers there between 1925 and 1961 and that is in itself a shocking statistic. But what gave the story wings was the claim that their bodies had been dumped in a septic tank…

No it wasn’t. That was a squalid, mean, brutal detail, to be sure, but the terrible death rate was the real story.

Twenty babies dropped in a cesspit as corpses is a horrifying figure. Even one would be dreadful. And of course the whole story fits wonderfully into the larger stories of Irish nuns as heartless and cruel, which many undoubtedly were. But what’s interesting to a student of religion is why the desecration of dead bodies should be so very much more shocking than the deaths of living babies.

It’s not. It’s not, Andrew. Get a grip. It may be a poignant detail that startles people into paying more attention, but that doesn’t make it actually soberly more shocking than the terrible death rate. Don’t be so damn silly.

Then he says the same thing all over again – the death rate in the home was very high, way too high, surprisingly high -

But it still doesn’t horrify us in the same way as the thought of dead babies tossed into a cesspit does.

In the same way, possibly not, but that’s not to say it horrifies us less.

But Andrew gets himself to his own desired conclusion anyway.

This story will undoubtedly be used to attack religion. But what it actually shows is how very deeply religious instincts operate within us.

That’s what it shows, is it?! I say what it actually shows is that religion doesn’t stop people from being the most awful shits.

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

When I flagged up the #TwitterTheocracy campaign yesterday I forgot to link to the petition, and I forgot to sign it myself. Sign the petition!

It’s authored by Ex Muslims of North America.

Twitter has agreed to use its ‘Country Withheld Tool’ to block “blasphemous” tweets in Pakistan. Blasphemy laws are used in Pakistan and elsewhere to suppress dissent and persecute minorities who face state and vigilante violence at the mere accusation of blasphemy. Twitter is  being complicit in suppressing free speech, and in aiding Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.

—

We urge Twitter and all other international companies and organizations to uphold human rights-based standards of conduct, particularly when it comes to freedom of expression.

—

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, states:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

—

Tell Twitter that human rights trump theocratic oppression, and that you will not tolerate censorship of dissenters who are trying to speak up against theocratic and oppressive regimes.

—

Sign this petition and join us on June 10 by tweeting using hashtag #TwitterTheocracy. Use the freedom of speech you still have to defend the same human right for everyone. For more info, visit the campaign against #TwitterTheocracy page.

—

Remember to spread the word among your own social networks!

More signatures!

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

Behold the ignorant and fanatical Congressional Representative Louie Gohmert, Republican of Texas, grilling the Rev Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, on whether or not he believes what Jesus said right here on this one page.

“Do you believe in sharing the good news that will keep people from going to Hell, consistent with Christian beliefs?” the Texas Republican wondered.

Lynn, however, disagreed with the congressman’s “construction of what Hell is like or why one gets there.”

“So, you do not believe somebody would go to Hell if they do not believe Jesus is the way, the truth, the life?” Gohmert pressed.

The pastor argued that people would not got to Hell for believing a “set of ideas.”

“No, not a set of ideas. Either you believe as a Christian that Jesus is the way, the truth, or life or you don’t,” Gohmert shot back. “And there’s nothing wrong in our country with that — there’s no crime, there’s no shame.”

“Congressman, what I believe is not necessarily what I think ought to justify the creation of public policy for everybody,” Lynn explained. “For the 2,000 different religions that exist in this country, the 25 million non-believers. I’ve never been offended, I’ve never been ashamed to share my belief. When I spoke recently at an American Atheists conference, it was clear from the very beginning, the first sentence that I was a Christian minister.”

“So, the Christian belief as you see it is whatever you choose to think about Christ, whether or not you believe those words he said that nobody basically ‘goes to heaven except through me,’” Gohmert concluded, ignoring the point about separation of church and state.

He’s in Congress, and he’s clueless about the Constitution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyzW5YmS2Yw

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

Another member of Atheist Ireland also went to the protest and took photos and posted them and gave me permission to post them.

Atheist Ireland estimates there were about 1000 people at the protest.

Atheist Ireland

That’s Jane Donnelly and Michael Nugent right there in the foreground.

Atheist Ireland

Atheist Ireland

Atheist Ireland

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

Michael Nugent is at the Justice for the Tuam babies protest at the Daíl. He posted this photo on Facebook:

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

Yet another front in the war on women-who-don’t-like-rape-threats. Here’s one summary:

Jacobin Magazine published a piece by Amber A’Lee Frost on Saturday denouncing the “troubling new trend in younger leftist circles” of ascribing all sexism to “bros”. The article hung all of its critical extrapolation on what amounted to two tweets, one by Aaron Bady, and a second by Al Jazeera English writer Sarah Kenzior. Kendzior objected to the use of her tweet, a reply to a friend in which she characterized someone sending her rape threats as a “brocialist,” particularly since it was used by Frost as a finger-wagging example of how one ought not to use the word “bro.” In fact, Frost later* writes “Give me a card-carrying brocialist over one of these oily “allies” any day,” which it’s hard to interpret any way other than explicit support for the person sending Kendzior rape threats, so what’s that about?

And where does Jacobin stand editorially on rape threats? The piece’s editor, Micah Uetricht, apologized to Kendzior, explaining that he “didn’t read piece nor link closely enough—thought it was saying something else.” Megan Erickson, on the other hand, whose Twitter bio says she is “Editor, @jacobinmag,” said that Kendzior’s complaint was “dishonest, childish bullshit,” and that she “didn’t edit it, but I agree completely with the sentiment and don’t apologize.” Erickson later clarified, however, that she is “not a journalist. I’m a teacher. And thank the fuck Christ for that, if this is what you call journalism.” So I guess that makes Jacobin Magazine some kind of school for scandal? Kendzior eventually wrote a blog post about the fracas, calling out Salon editor Elias Isquith, who apparently deleted the tweet she was referring to, having merely chosen an inopportune moment to deploy that old-time Twitter-brand tone-deaf humor. “The left has a rape problem,” Kenzior says.

Kendzior’s post is a stick of dynamite, and makes me feel like a fool for not having heard of her before.

She starts by saying she doesn’t write personal essays, which already makes me feel an affinity with her, because I don’t either. I use a personal voice, most of the time, as opposed to an impersonal academic-like one, but I use that voice to talk about things that aren’t me. I like writers who talk about things that aren’t themselves.

I do not like to write about myself, and I do not like to write about my pain. Today Jacobin put me in a position where I had no choice but to do that.

For the past few weeks, I have been receiving rape threats and constant harassment from people who describe themselves as leftists or communists, and apparently want to rape their way to revolution. I have attempted to handle these threats privately. I mentioned them on Twitter twice: once to violentfanon, whose podcast I nearly had to cancel on because of the intensity of the threats, and one to Kenzo Shibata, in a Twitter conversation.

…

During the YesAllWomen hashtag, which happened at the peak of the threats, I was tempted to open up about what was happening. I was moved by others sharing their stories, many of which were similar to mine. Like many women, I deleted more tweets than I submitted. In the end, I only referred to my situation obliquely. I could not go through with it.

Today Amber A’lee Frost at Jacobin magazine linked to my conversation with Shibata in order to mock my rape threats.

…

There are not words to describe the experience of reading an article, coming to the word “rape threats”, and then seeing that the rape threat is about you – intended to debase and humiliate you for admitting you have been threatened.

When I objected to the piece, two Jacobin editors admitted that they had not edited or carefully read the piece in question, and removed the link. Then another editor, Megan Erickson, said I was being “childish” for noting that they had mocked me for my rape threats. She and others spent the day mocking and harassing me.

Because this was now being handled in public, I was fortunate to receive the support of hundreds of people on Twitter – as well as attacks from others. I always expect some form of trolling, but I did not expect one of the attackers to be an editor at Salon, Elias Isquith, who questioned what my potential rape meant for “hashtags” and “brands”.

So in one day, two leftist publications used rape threats to me to belittle me, humiliate me and defame me. And then others accuse me of wanting attention.

What.a.mess.

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

Have a Jesus and Mo.

Stupid, no, but unreasonably credulous, yes.

It’s human to be unreasonably credulous, of course, but it’s also human to be able to learn to correct for that. It’s human to learn to correct for that but still fail to correct for it on all occasions – in other words it’s human to correct for unreasonable credulity on things one is not too invested in but fail to correct for it when one has a motive not to.

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

Priests are supposed to be better than the rest of us, right? They’re supposed to have a special pipeline to god – that’s why they’re priests. It’s not just a job like any other; it’s not something you learn, like plumbing or pharmacy; it’s a magical goddy thing you’re inducted into. Priests are Set Apart; they are Intermediaries between us and the goddy fella.

Bishops are that but more so, and archbishops are that and more so again.

So why would an archbishop not know it’s wrong for adults to rape children? Knowing that is just average, surely; since archbishops are supposed to be way way way above average in the knowing right from wrong department (because of the special link to god), they would surely know it before they had even sent away for their name tapes for priest-school.

But the archbishop of St Louis says he doesn’t know if he knew. He’s just all at sea on the matter.

In extraordinary testimony last month, Archbishop Robert Carlson said he was unsure about whether he knew it was a crime for an adult to have sex with a child.

Carlson, the head of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, was deposed for a case regarding sex abuse allegations that took place when he was auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis from 1979 until 1994. He investigated those allegations during his time in Minnesota.

During the deposition, which was released Monday, attorney Jeff Anderson asked Carlson if he “knew it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a kid.”

“I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not,” Carlson said. “I understand today it’s a crime.”

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

An Irish expat in Boston feels ashamed to be Irish at the moment.

It’s hard to like or be proud of your own country, a country where bad things have happened: church-concealed child sexual abuse, women’s labor camps, a.k.a. Magdalene Laundries, and, now, 796 unconsecrated and unmarked baby graves. No, not ‘happened.’ These atrocities were perpetrated, ignored and criminally concealed. The victims? Women, children and the poor. The atonement? Little to none.

Even if the national will or means were there, even if it could be orchestrated, how would Ireland carry out a reconciliation process? What does it take for a country to have or to acquire the morality, the humility and the will to atone for collective cruelties to its most vulnerable citizens?

I don’t know. But I do think that a formal separation of church and state would be a very good start. So would an end to the hypocritical set of laws that still mandates that 21st-century Irish women must travel overseas for legal, safe abortions.

Aine Greaney made it to adulthood all right, without being locked up in a laundry or having a baby yanked away from her to be sold to someone from California.

So this particular brand of Irish “bad thing” didn’t happen to me.

But please tell me that there is no woman with a uterus, a brain and a heart who has read the reports of the St. Mary’s mothers’ and babies’ home in Tuam, County Galway — plus the follow-on reports from other similar homes in Cork and Westmeath – and not felt sickened? Surely no woman can read about those interned and tortured unmarried mothers and not know that this is about all of us?

Lest we protest that history is history, that we cannot superimpose a modern, enlightened sensibility upon a church-whipped past, let me assure you that this shaming of women, this Irish neutering of our female sexuality, extended well into and beyond the 1980s.

Which means that it will take decades more – it will take a couple of generations dying off – before it’s out of the system altogether.

I have always been proud of how, regardless of economics, religious belief or social class, we Irish maintain and observe a ritualistic solemnity around death. Even in the most impoverished, most illiterate times, we perform those sacred rituals that send the dead off to their next place. Irish companies and nonprofits allow their employees much more bereavement time than their American counterparts. During and after the full, two-day funeral, we Irish make enough tea and deliver enough curries or casseroles to keep the bereaved from feeling lonely or hungry or abandoned.

But I was wrong about this national trait. My pride was misplaced. This latest story proves that our Irish reverence was only for those who died under our approved moral codes — a code that had little or nothing to do with morality. For the Irish, some corpses are more equal, more deserving of ritual and reverence than others.  What a national and diaspora-wide disgrace.

Which is really morality – kindness and compassion, or keeping your legs closed?

Right.

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

Join the campaign against #TwitterTheocracy today June 10th 2014. Ex-Muslims of North America explains:

Twitter has agreed to use its ‘Country Withheld Tool’ to block “blasphemous tweets” in Pakistan, thus becoming complicit in suppressing free speech, and in aiding Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.

Over the past month, Twitter accounts have been suspended and tweets have been blocked in Pakistan; a Twitter user has recently been jailed in Turkey for a “blasphemous” tweet. In Pakistan and other theocracy-based states, blasphemy laws are key tools used by those in power to actively persecute minorities. We urge Twitter and all other international companies and organizations to uphold human rights-based standards of conduct, particularly when it comes to freedom of expression.

We at Ex-Muslims of North America (EXMNA) are committed to the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 19, pertaining to freedom of expression. Alongside AA, AAI, AHA, Black Non-Believers, Camp Quest, CFI, RDFRS, SCA, SHJ, SSA and other secular allies, we are organizing a day of protest on June 10th to highlight the role Twitter is playing in aiding and promoting anti-freedom, anti-human-rights, theocratic policies.

On June 10th, tweet hashtag #TwitterTheocracy and speak up about how Twitter has chosen to side with theocratic regimes instead of those who are trying to resist those regimes.

There was a time when Twitter was rightly lauded for the role it played during the Arab Spring, facilitating communication between those resisting oppressive governments. In fact, Egypt’s dictators tried to disable Twitter, and then internet access completely, before being overwhelmed by the protests that began at Tahrir Square. Governments in Tunisia and Iran tried similar tactics to suppress protests against those oppressive regimes.

Lately, Twitter seems to have moved away from its ethical, pro-human-rights stance, and caved to the demands of oppressive governments. By using its ‘Country Withheld Tool’ to enable government authorities to censor content, Twitter is aiding the enforcement of laws that violate both the UN declaration as well as the secular values of the separation of church/mosque and state.

We at EXMNA, and our secular allies, understand the complicated position in which Twitter and other international companies and organizations find themselves when operating in countries with oppressive regimes. However, Twitter users, secularists, and those who care about human rights expect Twitter to be better than oppressive, theocratic regimes. Twitter was forged on the principles of open communication. Now, it has compromised the principles of freedom of expression in selected regions of the world. We must stand against this selective hypocrisy.

We urge you to use your freedom of expression, and tweet using the hashtag #TwitterTheocracy on June 10th, 2014. Along with tweeting the hashtag, we ask that you sign our petition, to call out Twitter’s complicity in censoring dissenters and aiding the theocratic agenda in Pakistan and elsewhere. If you care about freedom of expression and human rights, please speak up, join this campaign, and share this page with your friends and social networks.

This campaign is by

Ex-Muslims of North America – www.exmna.org
Atheists Alliance International – www.atheistalliance.org
American Atheists – www.atheists.org
American Humanists Association – www.americanhumanist.org
Black Non-Believers – blacknonbelievers.wordpress.com
British Humanist Association – humanism.org.uk
Camp Quest – www.campquest.org
Center for Inquiry – www.centerforinquiry.net
International Humanist and Ethical Union – www.iheu.org
Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science – www.richarddawkins.net
Secular Students Alliance – http://www.secularstudents.org
Society for Humanistic Judaism – www.shj.org
Secular Coalition for America – www.secular.org

To Twitter!

#TwitterTheocracy

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

And in Borno state, more women are grabbed and enslaved.

Suspected Boko Haram militants have abducted at least 20 women close to where 200 schoolgirls were kidnapped in northern Nigeria, eyewitnesses say.

The women were loaded on to vans at gunpoint and driven away to an unknown location in Borno state, they add.

The army has not commented on the incident, which occurred on the nomadic Garkin Fulani settlement on Thursday.

And Nigerian officialdom just shrugs and goes about its business?

The latest incident occurred close to where more than 200 schoolgirls were snatched from the remote Chibok town near the Cameroonian border on 14 April.

A member of a local vigilante group set up to resist such attacks said that in addition to the women, the militants also seized three men who had tried to stop the abduction.

“We tried to go after them when the news got to us about three hours later, but the vehicles we have could not go far, and the report came to us a little bit late,” Alhaji Tar said.

It’s a war of all against all.

On Monday, the military announced it had killed 50 insurgents in anti-terrorism operations in recent days and prevented further Islamist raids on villages in Borno and neighbouring Adamawa state.

It follows a wave of militant attacks on villages in recent days, with as many as 200 people feared killed in one attack alone in the remote Gwoza area of Borno state.

A world of bandits preying on village people; the childhood of the species; no law, no justice, no safety, no peace.

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

Today’s is in Oregon.

A gunman has shot dead a student at a school in the US state of Oregon, and he is also dead, police said.

“The student has died. I’m very, very sorry for the family,” said Troutdale police chief Scott Anderson.

Shots were reported at Reynolds High School in Troutdale on Tuesday morning when the suspect opened fire using a semi-automatic weapon.

A well-regulated militia.

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

The BBC has a rather opaque story on the “Trojan Horse” thingummy.

Head teachers claim there was an organised campaign to impose a “narrow, faith-based ideology” at some schools in Birmingham, Ofsted has said.

The watchdog has placed five of the city’s schools in special measures after “deeply worrying” findings.

It inspected 21 schools after an anonymous letter alleging a Muslim takeover plot was circulated.

It’s too bad they don’t just require state schools to be secular.

Sir Michael said teachers at some of the schools inspected had reported being unfairly treated due to their faith and gender.

He said inspectors had “uncovered evidence of unfair and opaque recruitment practices, including examples of relatives being appointed to unadvertised senior posts”.

“Although exam results are often good, the curriculum has become too narrow, reflecting the personal views of a small number of governors, rather than the wider community in Birmingham and beyond,” he said.

Funny, isn’t it, an opaque story talking about unfair and opaque recruitment practices in carefully opaque language. It’s opacity all the way down, and not very conducive to understanding.

Ofsted’s key findings at five inadequate schools

• Nansen Primary was criticised for the leadership of the school as well as pupils’ behaviour. Ofsted said: “The governing body has removed some subjects, such as music, from the timetable.” It added that the school “does not prepare pupils adequately for life in modern Britain”.
• Inspectors recommended Oldknow Academy was put in special measures despite being rated outstanding in some categories. The report said a small group of governors was “making significant changes to the ethos and culture of the academy without full consultation”. “They are endeavouring to promote a particular and narrow faith-based ideology in what is a maintained and non-faith academy,” it said.
• Saltley School, previously rated good, was criticised in every area, including governance, teaching standards, pupils’ achievement, safety and leadership. Inspectors also criticised financial management at the school and relationships between senior staff and governors.
• Ofsted found Park View School did not do enough to alert students to the risks of extremism. It said speakers invited to the school were not vetted and pupils were not taught about the safe use of the internet. Pupils are not given adequate preparation for living in a multi-cultural society, it said.
• At Golden Hillock, inspectors concluded leaders and governors were “not doing enough to mitigate against cultural isolation”. Ofsted concluded it “could leave students vulnerable to the risk of marginalisation from wider British society”.

Yet more opacity.

Bhupinder Kondal, principal of Oldknow Academy, said she was removed from her post in January against her will.

Anderson Park head Sarah Hewitt-Clarkson said “none of the contents of the Trojan Horse letter came as a shock”.

Another head teacher, speaking anonymously, told the BBC they had been “bullied” into employing a senior member of staff with no experience.

Arshad Malik, whose son, Imran, attends Park View School, said he believed people were “trying to use this school to push their own agendas”.

“‎Inspectors came with loaded questions…This issue is a political football,” he said.

Gaafar Tariq, a taxi driver and father-of-five, has two children who attend Nansen Primary School.

The 47-year-old said: “I don’t think there’s any concern about extremism in this area and these reports prove it. I don’t see any problem with this school.”

They said they said they said.

Opaque.

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

A Twitter conversation with Improbable Joe that touched on collecting papers reminded me of Ensign Pulver, looking for marbles all day long, so I Googled to see if I could find a YouTube clip of that bit but no luck, there’s only the more famous last scene where Pulver throws the Captain’s palm tree overboard. So then I Googled the phrase itself and found several things including…a ten-year-old post by me. It’s kind of interesting so I’m just going to recycle it.

—————————————————————————————————–

One thing (but not the only thing) that prompted this train of thought (or perhaps bus of rumination or minivan of woolgathering or rollerskate of idle daydreaming) was something I read a few days ago in another of Dwight Macdonald’s letters, this one from January 1946, when Macdonald was editing his own magazine Politics.

I suppose you’ve read by now Simone Weil’s article on The Iliad. The response to it has surprised me; I thought it was a great political article, dealing with the moral questions implicit in the terrible events one reads about in every day’s newspaper, which was why I played it up so prominently in the issue…Nothing I’ve printed yet seems to have made so deep an impression. The only people who didn’t understand how such an article had a place in a political journal were – and I think this is profoundly significant – all of them Marxists. To a Marxist, an analysis of human behavior from an ethical point of view is just not ‘serious’ – even smacks a little of religion.

I think the Marxists who didn’t understand must have had a fairly crude understanding of Marxism, but that’s another subject. The relevant aspect is the question of what has a place in a particular kind of journal and what doesn’t – and the fact that Macdonald was thinking about that question. I was already thinking about it when I read that – well in fact I’m always thinking about it, really. Not every second, but every day, usually several times a day. Every time I link to a News item, in fact every time I look for a News item, which in a sense is every time I read anything at all, other than perhaps package ingredients or addresses on envelopes. As Ensign Pulver was looking for marbles all day long, I’m looking for News items all day long. Though not always actively looking – sometimes I’m just reading, like a normal person, and then as I read the act of reading is transformed into the act of reading for something. Though that doesn’t quite describe it either, because I seldom do ‘just read’ any more – or I both just read and read for something. Which is interesting, in a boring sort of way – by which I mean it interests me but I realize it may not interest everyone. Actually maybe I’ve never ‘just read’, at least not exclusively. I think that’s right – but the percentage has changed.

There’s a lot to be said for reading for something. There’s also a good deal to be said for just reading, but on the whole I prefer reading for something, as long as the something I’m reading for is worth it. I thought while I was typing it that all this was an unconscionable digression that I would probably delete, but I’ve changed my mind. It is about the subject under discussion, in a strained sort of way. Why do we read, after all? Surely the way we think about that question has some connection to what kind of thing we want to read, and why, which has some connection to why Macdonald published Weil on The Iliad. She wrote it for something, he published it for something, the readers read it for something.

At any rate, I was thinking about it more than usual even before I read the Macdonald letter. It was because of posting an item about the Bush administration’s approach to science – I was thinking about the fact that that’s not academic (to put it mildly) nonsense, so it’s not strictly our subject. I decided that what did make it our subject was the element of bullshit involved. The fact that it’s not just mistaken, but the kind of mistaken rooted in prior commitments. I decided it is worth pointing out occasionally that the academic left certainly does not have a monopoly on that kind of bad thinking. I try to do that kind of thing sparingly, because otherwise B&W will just be about anything and everything; but that’s my reasoning for doing it once in awhile. That’s my Iliad.

Because our subject is woolly thinking of a particular kind – thinking that’s fuzzy because it’s distorted, because it starts out from the wrong place. Because it starts not from genuine inquiry but from what Susan Haack calls pseudo-inquiry – not from a real desire to find the truth but from a desire to make a case for a pre-selected conclusion. That’s the bullshit aspect, the bogus element, the pseudo factor. B&W examines the academic manifestations of woolly thinking and pseudo-inquiry and bullshit, but it is worth offering an occasional example from other parts of the world too, I think, if only for epistemological reasons. It is part of the overall story, of the Big Pikcha as I said to my colleague the other day. It’s part of an understanding of how woolly thinking and bad moves work, to be able to recognize them in a variety of habitats, to realize that they’re not confined to one discipline or sector of the economy or political orientation. If we don’t know it when we see it, how can we resist it?

- See more at: http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2004/reading-for-something/#sthash.2LxvPe5o.dpuf

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

I generally try to find other sources for items reported by Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch, because I’m leery of his allies and fans. But I could find only Spanish news sources for this one, so I’m going with it, hoping English language sources will pick it up later. I’m going with it because it’s horrendous.

Spain to deport Pakistani ex-Muslim refugee for criticizing Islam

“Spain to Deport Pakistani Refugee for Criticizing Islam,” by Soeren Kern, Gatestone Institute, June 6, 2014:

The Spanish Supreme Court has ruled that a political refugee should be deported because his criticism of Islam poses “a danger to the security of Spain.”

The May 30 ruling, which upholds an earlier decision by a lower court to revoke the refugee status of a Pakistani ex-Muslim named Imran Firasat, showcases how the fear of Muslim rage continues to threaten the exercise of free speech in Europe.

Firasat obtained political asylum in Spain in October 2006 because of death threats against him in both Pakistan and Indonesia for leaving the Islamic faith and marrying a non-Muslim.

But then he made a movie about the prophet and the prophet’s religion…

Firasat, who runs a website called MundoSinIslam.com (A World Without Islam), says he was inspired by another amateur film, “The Innocence of Muslims,” which portrayed the Islamic Prophet Mohammed as a womanizer and a pedophile. Released in September 2012, the movie triggered a wave of riots across Europe and the Middle East that resulted in the deaths of more than 30 people.

At the time, the Obama Administration falsely alleged that the film was responsible for the death of the American ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three others in Benghazi, Libya.

“When I heard that the U.S. ambassador was slain,” Firasat told the Belgian newspaper De Morgen in December 2012. “I said okay, you Muslims, use violence, but we will continue to make films. One day one of us will lose.”

And so Spain decided that made him a threat to Spanish security, so they decided to revoke his refugee status.

Fernández issued an order on December 21, 2012 to deport Firasat based on Article 44 of the Law on Asylum and Protection, which allows the state to revoke the refugee status of “persons who constitute a threat to Spanish security.” The deportation order stated that Firasat constituted a “persistent source of problems due to his constant threats against the Koran and Islam in general.”

Firasat appealed the deportation order at the National Court [Audiencia Nacional], arguing that the expression of his views about Islam fall within the constitutional right to free speech.

But the National Court rejected Firasat’s appeal. A ruling dated October 3, 2013 states:

“The right to the freedom of expression can be subject to certain formalities, conditions, restrictions or sanctions, which constitute necessary measures, in a democratic society, to preserve national security, public security and the constitutional order.”

Under certain narrow conditions, yes…

Now the Supreme Court has not only confirmed the National Court’s ruling, but it has gone one step farther. Its ruling states:

“The right to the freedom of expression does not guarantee the right to intolerant manifestations or expressions that infringe against religious freedom, that have the character of blasphemy or that seek to offend religious convictions and do not contribute to the public debate.”

This paragraph is strangely similar to an international blasphemy law being promoted by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, a bloc of 57 Muslim countries dedicated to implementing a worldwide ban on “negative stereotyping of Islam.”

Jesus god – the right to the freedom of expression does not guarantee the right to intolerant manifestations or expressions that have the character of blasphemy?? It doesn’t?!

If that’s true we’re all in big big trouble.

Warning of potential trouble ahead for the exercise of free speech in Spain, two judges—Manuel Campos and Isabella Perelló—dissented from the majority opinion. They signed a statement in which they ask whether the source of the danger to national security is in the actions of Firasat, or in the reactions of Islamic fundamentalists. They write:

“The pernicious effects against national security do not strictly derive from the conduct of the refugee, but rather from the violent reactions of third persons.”

Although Firasat can now be deported, the court says he and his family will not be delivered “to a country where there is danger to life or freedom.”

Oh, Spencer must have missed that sentence, because he says the opposite in his intro at the top:

Imran Firasat’s criticism of Islam doesn’t pose a danger to the security of Spain. What poses a danger to the security of Spain is the way some Muslims may react to Imran Firasat’s criticism of Islam. But rather than confront them, Spanish authorities are sending Imran Firasat back to certain death in Pakistan.

But apparently they’re not, so…Spencer got that part wrong. It’s an important part. Sending him to Sweden (say) is different from sending him to Pakistan.

It’s still a bad outcome though. Bad Spain; do better.

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

Originally a comment on Asking a question.

Others have already said much that I would have about the content and attitude of this missive, but I found this remark the most concerning:

The Global Secular Council “launched” only its website and social media at the behest of many involved, mainly donors,

As I mentioned previously, many of these organizations seem to have a real transparency problem concerning donations and finances. It was a big issue at RDF, Rogers’ recent firing appears to have something to do with embezzlement at SCA, I can’t get anyone from the Harvard Humanists to give any information about donors,* and the course of the JREF looks at this point to be determined by one guy.

To the extent that an organization or sub-organization is dominated by one or a handful of donors with outsized influence, it tends to reflect their politics, priorities, and personal animosities and agendas rather than those of the community. Now this new project appears, founded and advised by the “Bella & Stella Foundation.” Who is this? Is it a vanity project of one or more of the “Experts,” several of whom are also on the SCA’s advisory board? Do the donors, important enough to push through the GSC’s launch, have their own political goals?

This changes the whole situation for people who are questioning or criticizing an organization’s actions, because they’re (reasonably) expecting the organization to be responsive to its supporters and to the community it claims to represent, when it largely won’t be because it’s beholden to a small number of individuals. People will tend to attribute to incompetence what’s really an intentional course of action.

* I’m not asking them to name people, just to say whether the large bulk of donations come from small donations or one or a handful of individual rich people or organizations.

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

Wow! An 11-year-old kid did today’s Google doodle, which is one brilliant doodle – I jumped when I saw it and then looked for information about it, as one does – I thought it was perhaps a variation on John Tenniel, creator of the brilliant illustrations of Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking-glass. I was not thinking “probably an 11-year-old kid.”

Credit: Google

The Google one is animated. Audrey Zhang’s is a still.

Yesterday the Handmade Parade in Hebden Bridge, today this. Yay art. Art makes me feel optimistic.

Long Island Now reports on the local genius:

Visit Google’s homepage today and marvel at the intricate and interactive doodle created by an 11-year-old Long Island girl.

An animated version of the drawing that recently won Levittown fifth-grader Audrey Zhang the national 2014 Doodle 4 Google contest went live on the site at midnight Sunday and will be on display throughout Monday.

In an interview Sunday, Audrey, a student at Island Trees Middle School, said she was “excited” to see her masterpiece brought to life, but she wasn’t planning to be awake when it debuted at midnight. She said she would see it when she woke up Monday morning.

Fabulous job, Audrey.

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