Which is good, according to him, because journalists, according to him, are afraid to read science. Even ones with PhDs in science like Phil Plait and Laura Helmuth (health and science editor of Slate).

As RFK Jr. explained, “journalists get their information from government officials who are saying there’s no problem. Not one of them has picked up the multitude of studies that say thimerosal is the most potent brain killer imaginable.” When RFK Jr. challenged the university scientist about a study of the biological activity of thimerosal in vitro, which “everybody accepts because journalists hadn’t read it,” the scientist said, “ ‘Oh, yeah, you’re right about that.’ He backpedaled.” That’s because “now he was dealing with somebody who wasn’t afraid to read science.”

I talked to the scientist, who would prefer I not use his name because he gets death threats from unhinged anti-vaxxers. He said, “Kennedy completely misrepresented everything I said.”

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

He was fifteen. It’s not even clear that he was an atheist. (But what difference does it make? It’s not as if it’s any more acceptable to murder if they were correct in thinking he was an atheist.)

Coffee seller Mohammad Qataa was allegedly shot in the face and neck a day after being kidnapped by an Islamist group in Aleppo, called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, once previously known as the Nusra Front.

…

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the boy had been arguing with someone about the existence of God, and was heard to say: “Even if the Prophet Mohammad returns, I will not become a believer.”

But other sources suggested that the comment was misheard, and that the boy was actually arguing with another customer over giving him a free coffee, saying “Even if the Prophet returns, I will not give you a free coffee.”

Qataa was reportedly abducted and tortured for 24 hours, before being dragged into the middle of a crowded street and executed in front of his mother. Eyewitness told the Observatory they did not believe the men were Syrian.

The Observatory said in a statement: “People gathered around him and a member of the fighting brigade said: ‘Generous citizens of Aleppo, disbelieving in God is polytheism and cursing the prophet is a polytheism. Whoever curses even once will be punished like this’.

“He then fired two bullets from an automatic rifle in view of the crowd and in front of the boy’s mother and father, and got into a car and left.”

What a foul god those guys believe in.

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

You know that thing about all the raping going on in the US military? You know whose fault that is? I’ll tell you. It’s those pesky liberals trying to “take over the military.” That’s right! They cause all those guys in uniform to trip and fall onto women and get their penises all stuck accidentally up them. It’s a liberal holocaust type of deal.

Fox News contributor Allen West agreed with radio host Michael Savage’s assertion that “Khmer Rouge feminists” are attempting a “coup” against the military by proposing to change the military chain of command in sexual assault cases. West also used the sexual assault issue to criticize liberals for wanting to “put women into combat arms units” “so they can meet some sort of socially engineering goal or egalitarian goal.”

Savage, who hosts Cumulus Media Networks’ Savage Nation, began the June 4 segment by playing audio of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) talking about changing the military chain of command in sexual assault cases. After saying Gillibrand “sounds like a college chick at a dorm,” Savage told guest West: ”When I watch these Khmer Rouge feminists try to take over the military, this looked like an attempted coup to me, Colonel West.”

A college chick in a dorm? Really? That grown up? Sure she didn’t sound like a whiney little girl who can’t throw? Let’s be thorough about this.

The former Republican congressman also linked military sexual assaults to putting women in combat.

West stated: “But then ask yourself, now why would you want to put women into combat arms units, and the infantry units, and fighting units … Unfortunately, there are some that believe G.I. Jane is not just a movie, it’s something that could actually be implemented. And there may be exceptions to the rule, but you should not make a change in the standards, which I think is what you’ve heard General Martin Dempsey talk about doing just so they can meet some sort of socially engineering goal or egalitarian goal of the left, liberal progressives.”

That’s right. Egalitarianism is just a euphemism for rape, and rape is what women deserve if they go into the military. Col. West is a credit to the service.

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

Wow, the Google doodle today. If you haven’t already, click on the play button. At Google.

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

I mentioned yesterday that I was more cheerful about the Dublin conference, and added that it was because there had been some communication. I was cryptic about it because I’d forgotten to ask if it would be ok for me to mention it.

(Some buffoon pretended to think I was making a threat. Seriously – “there’s been some communication” – a threat.

I'm now happy about going to Ireland. There's been... a 'communication'. And I'm not telling you what is was, so BE AFRAID! #atheismplus

June 8, 2013 7:03 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@atheismplus

Atheism+

Not a communication, some communication. And why would that be a threat anyway? Jeezis.)

I repaired the omission today, so I can be less obscure: I’ve talked to Michael Nugent and Jane Donnelly, and it went well. (Nothing to BE AFRAID of there, either. It went well, meaning what that normally means, not what it means in a TV show about MI5.)

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

Another branch of Deep Rifts, this time nothing whatever to do with me (hooray!).

The story, as concisely as possible: before the Freedom From Religion Foundation had a Facebook page, someone set up a group called Freedom From Religion Foundation as a place for fans of FFRF to hang out. It apparently became rather…contentious as time went on, and meanwhile FFRF got itself a Facebook page. On Friday the publicist for FFRF posted there.

My name is Lauryn and I’m the publicist for the FFRF. Eric and other admin have been kind enough to agree to shut down this group  by June 30 and start a new group. The reason for this is because our pages have been commonly confused.

We know this is disappointing and we apologize for the inconvenience. However, as an organization we had no choice. Eric’s group although known as “Friends of FFRF,” is actually known as and officially registered as “FFRF”. They cannot change the name based on the size of members. It was was created before an official FFRF page existed. Because FFRF is our official name, we must keep full control of all domains including just that name.

As you’ve mentioned, people forget about the pages they “like” and check them less frequently than groups. However, at our FFRF page you can find official press releases, updated news and photos from inside the FFRF etc. Our page is moderated by staff and volunteers to prevent an …overwhelming amount of proselytizing from trolls.

The good news is that Eric is creating a new “Friends of FFRF” group. We urge you to join the new group created by these folks. We would also appreciate if you follow our official page at https://www.facebook.com/4ffrf. Thanks so much for your support!!

All good. But guess what – it’s being spun as politicalcorrectnessgonemad and ftbulliesplusshuttingeveryoneup. “MosesZD” spins it that way on Michael Nugent’s post about the attempt to get me kicked out of the Dublin conference:

This link: http://tinyurl.com/qfnohg7 was to a friends of the FFRF group – a FB page for friends of the group but is not officially representative of them.

It was shut down by A+. Maiforpeace, The Lousy Cannuk and others who waged a false-flagging campaign.

Now do you see what we’re up against? Now do you see the problem? Or is it going to be more of the golden mean fallacy as A+ strives to destroy skepticism and atheism with their intolerance of others and desire to inflict their ideas of ideological purity on others.

Not true. Just made up, out of whole cloth. Jason once argued with some people on one thread there, and that’s it – the sum total of his involvement with that group.

We’re like the Freemasons, right? We have a secret hand in everything. We are hidden and dangerous. Be afraid.

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

According to Reality Check, the Texas case didn’t happen the way it was described.

It is not in dispute that the defendant, Ezekiel Gilbert, paid the victim, Lenora Frago, $150 for 30 minutes of escort services advertised on Craigslist. After Frago refused to have sex with him, the defendant shot her. Frago was paralyzed and the defendant was charged with aggravated assault.  When she died seven months later Gilbert was indicted for murder instead.

At trial, defense attorneys made the shocking argument that Gilbert was justified in shooting Frago because she had stolen from him and Texas law permits the use of deadly force to defend one’s property at night. That a defense was raised in this case based on Texas’ awful defense of property law is certainly newsworthy and even more reason to reform that law. But there is no evidence that the jury acquitted based on the defense of property law in the first place.

It’s a horrible defense, Bridgette Dunlap agrees, but that doesn’t mean the defense shouldn’t use it.

As Professor Michael W. Martin of Fordham Law’s Federal Litigation Clinic reminded me: “If the law allows the defense, the lawyer must use it, if it is viable, unless there is a good strategic reason not to. Otherwise, it is ineffective assistance of counsel. If the lawyer feels like he is ethically barred from using a legal, viable defense, he should ask to be relieved.”

That’s how an adversarial system works, hence all those rape trials where the defense tries hard to discredit the victim.

The problem is that the law does allow the defense.

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

Prepare to turn pale with horror, then scarlet with rage. Prepare also to send a message to the Texas Attorney General.

A court in Texas just exonerated a man who shot and killed a woman who had refused to have sex with him. She’s dead, and he will serve no time at all.

Here’s what happened: Ezekiel Gilbert shot and killed a Craigslist escort after she left without having sex with him. His lawyer argued that since he had paid her $150 for the evening, he was justified under Texas law in shooting her because state law allows people “to use deadly force to recover property during a nighttime theft.”

It’s legal in Texas to kill a woman for refusing to have sex?

Are you serious?

For that matter, it’s legal in Texas to kill someone for stealing $150? Provided it happens at night?

What is wrong with them?

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

I’m much more optimistic about the Dublin conference now* – and thus able to be excited about it again. It’s going to tackle important subjects, and Ireland needs it. Lucky lucky me to get to be involved.

There’s a bit of privilege for you.

The clouds really are parting here, the band of blue really is bright, the colorful sails on the many sailboats on the Sound are festive.

*Because there’s been some communication.

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

I’m still thinking about “privilege” and its discontents. It interestes me, for several reasons, not just the ones that have to do with Ron’s talk at Women in Secularism 2 and the disagreements and battles that ensued.

Sometimes (often in fact) people hear things that aren’t intended in the use of any particular claim or word or phrase. Words and phrases can be used in many ways, some of them less reasonable than others.

Is that enough platitudes to get us started?

I do have a point. I’m thinking that one thing people who bristle at the word “privilege” hear is an added “unearned” in front of it. That can be massively annoying if one has in fact earned the privilege in question (or the privilege one thinks is in question even though in fact it isn’t).

Maybe you can see where I’m heading.

Often these discussions happen between men who have some power and influence and women who have much less. The tricky part there is that usually the men have the power and influence because they’ve earned them. Not always, and even less always all of it – the more power and influence you get, the more you can leverage it to get more and to squelch people who are trying to compete with you, sometimes in illegitimate ways. But apart from inherited “nobility” and people born rich and the like, usually power and influence (and piles of cash) have been earned at least to some extent. In some cases they’ve been earned with real talent and effort.

The word “privilege” can sound to such people like a denial of the earning. Sometimes it even is that.

That’s got to be annoying. You know? “Yes, I’m Mr Big, but I’m Mr Big because I’ve written ten critically-acclaimed best-sellers about science and atheism. Is that a bad thing? And by the way I’m not preventing you from trying to do the same thing. Go ahead!”

So that’s one item. I’d say more but I have an appointment, so later.

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

Some Alabama pastors say they don’t want any pesky Boy Scout troops meeting in their churches now that the organization has gone all queer.

The Rev. Mike Shaw, of the First Baptist Church of Pelham and former president of the Alabama Baptist Convention, says his church will no longer sponsor Troop 404 after the policy takes place next year.

“We’re not doing it out of hatred. The teachings of the scripture are very clear on this. We’re doing it because it violates the clear teaching of scripture,” Shaw told the Birmingham News.

And obviously a three thousand year old book is right about everything, and its “clear teaching” must be obeyed, and never mind what actual thinking about the issue might come up with instead.

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

The hacker known as KYAnonymous went after the rapists in the Steubenville case:

he obtained and published tweets and Instagram photos in which other team members had joked about the incident and belittled the victim.

The FBI busted him, and if he’s convicted he could get a lot more time than the rapists did.

He’d read about the Steubenville rape in the New York Times, but didn’t get involved until receiving a message on Twitter from Michelle McKee, a friend of an Ohio blogger who’d written about the case. (You can read about her story here.) McKee gave Lostutter the players’ tweets and Instagram photos, which he then decided to publicize because, as he put it, “I was always raised to stick up for people who are getting bullied.”

Oh, she wasn’t getting bullied. That was just dissent and disagreement. She needs to get a thicker skin. She needs to ignore the trolls.

At first, he thought the FBI agent at the door was with FedEx. “As I open the door to greet the driver, approximately 12 FBI SWAT team agents jumped out of the truck, screaming for me to ‘Get the fuck down!’ with M-16 assault rifles and full riot gear, armed, safety off, pointed directly at my head,” Lostutter wrote today on his blog. “I was handcuffed and detained outside while they cleared my house.”

Because hackers are notoriously violent.

Lostutter believes that the FBI investigation was motivated by local officials in Steubenville. “They want to make an example of me, saying, ‘You don’t fucking come after us. Don’t question us.”

If convicted of hacking-related crimes, Lostutter could face up to 10 years behind bars—far more than the one- and two-year sentences doled out to the Steubenville rapists. Defending himself could end up costing a fortune—he’s soliciting donations here. Still, he thinks getting involved was worth it. “I’d do it again,” he says.

Ten years for hacking, one or two years for rape with aggravated Twitter. Something amiss here.

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

Maureen Brian at Pharyngula, on PZ’s post about the limits to any perceived right to anonymity on the internet. She addresses a couple of commenters.

You both seem to be to be ignorant of or deliberately ignoring a key aspect of how we human beings work.

Plead innocence and confusion all you want but it is a factor which the bullies and harassers know well and exploit to the full.  Bullying and harassment work by the cumulative effects of abuse, lies, threats over time.  We may appear to brush off an individual incident but that does not mean we are unaffected or that we recover instantly from the hurt.  Bullies know and exploit this, keeping up the pressure and even working as a team so that their target never, ever recovers and can then be “teased” by which I mean abused for being over-sensitive / making it up / having no evidence.  (Sock-puppeting is just a pretend version of working as a team in the hope you won’t be spotted quite so quickly.)

This is why it is so hard to get, say, the police to take matters seriously  –  they look at a series of discrete acts no one of which is absolutely outrageous and fail to spot the cumulative effect.

This is the psychological equivalent of the old death by a thousand cuts and it’s time that all the “yes, but” brigade recognised that and stopped pretending not to understand.

It’s cumulative all right. Trust me on that.

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

From Jason’s megapost on privilege and strawprivilege.

Our minds are notoriously buggy machines, being made of meat and all. We’ve evolved toward certain biases in daily living, one of the biggest of which is that we can filter out things as white noise. Normally this is a huge advantage — there is so much going on all the time that we would be immobilized by trying to process it all, since our brains — fast though they are — are pitifully underpowered. Evolution came up with the trick of being able to ignore certain inputs as unnecessary. Thus, you stop hearing rain on your window after laying in bed for a while. Thus, you stop noticing every tiny irrelevant movement on your periphery while driving down the road, focusing only on that which presents an immediate danger to you. You ignore the flock of birds flying overhead, the cloud that looks like a bunny, while you get on with your business of avoiding the child that just chased a ball into the street.

Privilege is interpreted as white noise. You don’t see the smooth, clean road as a piece of information you need to interpret while you’re driving it — you notice the potholes and obstacles, though. You filter out the clean smooth road. You sink into a daily routine and don’t notice all the ways in which you have it better than the next person, until that next person starts itemizing them.

It surprises me a little that this is even contentious. Isn’t everybody familiar with the way you don’t notice something and then once it’s drawn to your attention you do, and you wonder how you missed it for so long? Also with the way you don’t know things and then when you learn some of them, that changes the way you understand a lot of things? Doesn’t it happen all the time?

The funny thing about privilege is, it’s not rational, at least not any more than it is conscious. It’s a blind spot. It’s your inability to recognize the scope and depth of a problem because it is a cognitive bias.

In sociology (which is, in fact, a science, like it or not!), the term privilege has remarkable descriptive power with regard to the power dynamics we experience, because the term is in fact, definitionally, one pole on those power dynamics (the opposite being “underprivilege”). So when someone says, for instance, “check your privilege”, they mean to check your blind spot. They mean that you should be aware that you may not be equipped to recognize the scope and depth of a problem because of the cognitive biases that keep you from seeing the problem to begin with.

It’s a blind spot. Like the one just over your shoulder when you’re driving. It’s not an insult or an attack, it’s just a blind spot. You can turn your head and look.

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

Tunisia is considered one of the more secular states in the region. And yet -

Thirty-year-old Tunisian blogger and secular activist Lina Ben Mhenni is concerned about death threats posted on her Facebook page and sent to her mobile phone.

“You see this message is in Arabic, it reads: ‘You infidel, we will kill you.’”

Pointing to another message, she says: “And this is just as clear: ‘We will find you.’”

If there’s anything that’s not secular, it’s the concept of being an “infidel.”

But many of the country’s more radical religious groups do not like people like Ms Ben Mhenni pushing to keep post-revolution Tunisia liberal and secular.

“This is not Tunisia it used to be,” she laments

“Radical Islamists are flourishing in the new Tunisia. They are a minority but have become very vocal.”

Ms Ben Mhenni says those who disagree with her do not limit their criticism to Facebook or texts.

“I have often been harassed by hardliners on the streets physically and verbally.”

Well she’s an infidel.

Ms Ben Mhenni showed me a recent YouTube video of a leader in the hardline Ansar al-Sharia group – which supports the introduction of Islamic law – attacking her on Tunisian TV.

“His statements are misleading really and taken out context to frame me,” said Ms Ben Mhenni, who teaches linguistics at Tunis University.

But she’s an infidel. That’s what one does to infidels.

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

Continuing in the poetic vein – the Cuttlefish has a great one.

I love to start fires; it’s just what I do—

I’ve started them all over town—

But recently, folks have begun to complain,

And they’re working on shutting me down.

I’m just having fun, but they say that it’s wrong;

I’m a danger, or that’s what they say.

I want lots of fires; they’re screaming for none:

Why can’t they just meet me half way?

Read the whole thing.

The analogy speaks to me, because about 20 years ago there was a bad arsonist at work in North Seattle, where I lived at the time. His fires were frequently very close to my neighborhood. Worse, my place had a lot of the features shared by places he struck, and he did his thing in the middle of the night. He scared me. His fires killed at least three people.

I don’t like arsonists.

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

Mona posted a sonnet poem on my Facebook page.

You have no enemies, you say?
Alas, my friend, the boast is poor,
He who has mingled in the fray
Of duty, that the brave endure,
Must have made foes. If you have none,
Small is the work that you have done.
You’ve hit no traitor on the hip,
You’ve dashed no cup from perjured lip,
You’ve never set the wrong to right.
You’ve been a coward in the fight.

– Charles Mackay (26 March 1812 – 24 December 1889), author of a history of popular folly, “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds”

It’s very appealing, but I have an inner daimon or teaser or pest or red flag or something, that won’t let me accept the compliment, much as I’d like to.

Why? Well because it works in one direction but not the other. Yes if you’ve never ever pissed off a single person, you probably haven’t done much righting of wrongs. But that doesn’t mean that the more people you’ve pissed off, the more righting of wrongs you’ve done.

Think Galileo. Yes, people thought Galileo was wrong. That doesn’t mean that just because people think you are wrong, you are therefore right.

Think Bill Gates. Yes, there must have been people who thought he was daft to drop out of Harvard. That doesn’t mean that everyone who drops out of college will become another Bill Gates.

I frequently piss people off by being an asshole. Sometimes, I think, I’m an asshole but still right about whatever it is I’m being an asshole about. But not always, and I don’t necessarily have to be an asshole about it. Sometimes one has to be an asshole, but not always. Sometimes I’m an asshole and wrong besides.

(But then there’s the whole thing about different standards for asshole status depending on whether you’re a woman or a man. That complicates things.)

Having said all that, I certainly enjoy getting flattering sonnets on my Facebook page!

Probably because I’m an asshole.

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