First of all, please stop saying things like that.

“Prayers have finally been answered. The nightmare is over,” said Stephen Anthony, head of the FBI in Cleveland. “These three young ladies have provided us with the ultimate definition of survival and perseverance. The healing can now begin.”

Dude. Prayers were not answered, finally or otherwise. Berry finally, after ten miserable years (during which her mother died, believing her to be dead), got a chance to escape and get the others rescued. That’s what happened. Prayers had nothing to do with it – and if they did, by the way, fuck the piece of shit who answered them. What took so long? Was the prayer-answerer too busy sending earthquakes and hurricanes and droughts?

But they had nothing to do with it, so shut up about them.

And then…

Two neighbors said Tuesday that they were alarmed enough by what they saw at the house to call police on two occasions.

Elsie Cintron, who lives three houses away, said her daughter once saw a naked woman crawling on her hands and knees in the backyard several years ago and called police. “But they didn’t take it seriously,” she said.

Another neighbor, Israel Lugo, said he heard pounding on some of the doors of Castro’s house, which had plastic bags on the windows, in November 2011. Lugo said officers knocked on the front door, but no one answered. “They walked to side of the house and then left,” he said.

Why weren’t the prayers powerful enough at least to make the cops do a more thorough job on one of those occasions? That’s not asking much. Most of the heavy lifting is already done – the cops are there, on the scene. Why didn’t the prayers cause the cops to take it seriously? To get a warrant and break the door down?

I’m not rushing to blame the cops. They probably get a lot of calls based on vague or could-be-mistaken” things, and they can’t get a warrant and break the door down every time – we’d be yelling about police brutality if they did. But why couldn’t the prayers have put a heavy thumb on the scales when it would have been useful?

Causality. It’s so easy to get it wrong.

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

A long time ago, when the world was young, John Fowles wrote a fascinating novel called The Collector. It was about a socially inept young man who collected butterflies and then inherited some money and hit on the bright idea of collecting a young woman, which he did. He bought an isolated house and fitted up a bunker in the basement, then collected the woman he’d been stalking and locked her up in it. After a year or so she developed pneumonia and died in the bunker (after begging him to get a doctor) and the novel ends with his stalking a new candidate.

Much of the novel is the diary of Miranda Grey, the collected woman, and she’s a wonderfully rich, complicated, interesting person.

It occurs to me now that I always thought of it as bordering on fantasy. Nobody would actually do that. It was a kind of thought experiment (though I wasn’t familiar with the concept of thought experiments when I read it).

Well think again.

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

Well not exactly new, because this was last January, but it’s new to me. I’m quite amazed by it.

Karla Porter tweets

@wbcshirl Have u heard of Women in Secularism 2 and if so, will u grace it with your presence? http://womeninsecularism.org #wiscfi

Shirley Phelps-Roper tweets

@karla_porter Where do they show themselves? Is there a schedule?

Karla Porter tweets

@wbcshirl schedule not up yet May 17-19 wash DC

That’s Shirley Phelps-Roper of the Westboro Baptist Church. She’s the spokesperson of the Westboro Baptist Church.

That is, indeed, a novel way to stir up trouble.

Update May 7

Justin Vacula tweets

If Ophelia Benson really wants WBC at Women in Secularism 2, I can call Steve Drain and maybe have that arranged…but I have no plans to.

Wtf? If I want them there? What the hell does he even think he’s saying? I didn’t tweet at Shirley Phelps-Roper to ask if she was going to WiS, and then give her dates and location.

Not to mention the whole quasi-threat thing. I have no [current] plans to, but I can. You want WBC at your event? I can maybe have that arranged. Nice little place you got here, shame to see it messed up.

Dig dig dig.

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

Jim Underdown puts in a good word for this funny new-fangled plan of having a conference that puts secularism and women together, and for the general idea of reaching out to particular groups by, you know, reaching out to them.

I look forward to being at the Women in Secularism conference next week. The line-up is chock-full of smart, interesting speakers, many of the attendees are friends and colleagues, and D.C. is a great place to spend a weekend.

Not everyone feels that way. Some of the people who are not going are not just passing on the conference, they’re also criticizing that it’s happening at all. It’s not needed; it’s a waste of resources; it dilutes our mission, they say.

That’s a polite version of what they say. The versions I see feature a lot of phrases like “professional victims” and “sisterhood of the oppressed” along with claims that we all (all we crazy feminazis) say all men are rapists, call nearly all women “sister punishers,” and steal all the money.

Underdown points out that religion has been shitty to women and there is every reason to encourage women to fight back.

ANY large group who feels like they have a particular beef with religion (or pseudoscience, or other wacky beliefs) has a legitimate interest in addressing that problem as a group.

At CFI-L.A., we’ve hosted Black Skeptics, Spanish-speaking atheists, gay and lesbian humanists, and others who’ve had specific troubles in our society based on who they fundamentally are. And I say, welcome to our tent.

And why not? Eh? Never heard of outreach? There are a lot of ways to do outreach. I say let’s have more outreach, not less.

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

Is skepticism a “movement” or is it not?

When I read PZ’s post saying goodbye to skepticism yesterday I first thought no, it isn’t, but then thought of all those conferences and events and thought well ok maybe it is. But – I’ve now reverted to “no, it isn’t,” not in the sense that a “movement” is usually understood.

Massimo Pigliucci and Michael DeDora exchanged some tweets about it just now, in the wake of Massimo’s post on PZ’s post and the larger subject. They compared the Civil Rights Movement and the specificity of its goals.

Michael De Dora‏ @mdedora

@mpigliucci Civil Rights Movement had specific and widely agreed upon social and political goals. Can same be said for skeptics?

Massimo Pigliucci‏ @mpigliucci

@mdedora How is that different from the Civil Rights movement? A community, local groups, national leaders…

True, and that’s why yesterday I thought “well, maybe.” But the Civil Rights movement is a good choice to illustrate why skepticism isn’t really “a movement” as we usually understand it – no sit ins, no marches, no voter registration drives, no firehoses, no mass arrests.

Skepticism just isn’t a good fit with that kind of thing. Atheism is much more so, I think – witness the Reason Rally. (But, you cry, the Reason Rally could be seen as a skeptical event more than an atheist one – it wasn’t the Atheist Rally after all! Well it kind of was, though.)

Then again I’m being nitpicky, or I’m ignoring Wittgenstein and family resemblances and all that. Do cricket and chess belong in the same category? If they do, then surely skepticism can be a movement too.

I guess, but it feels a bit off. I think maybe it’s too much like “brave hero” – it’s too much like wrapping oneself in the flag of real, hazardous struggles when in fact all one is doing is typing. I said the other day – correcting one of the many falsehoods about me out there – that I never call myself an “activist.” Well that’s why. Hey, writing is a fine thing to do – but it’s not the same kind of thing as activism. Skepticism isn’t a very movementy movement.

Whatcha think?

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

Oh, ew. Sometimes people are so gross that I’d prefer to be a tortoise. Like the people who made Obama-resembling targets to sell at gun conventions. You can see the images at Talking Points Memo – I don’t want them garbaging up this place.

It’s disgusting, that kind of shit, but it’s also dangerous. Whipping up people’s murderous rages is dangerous, because guess what, sometimes people act on their murderous rages.

At its convention in Houston, over the weekend, the National Rifle Association asked a vendor to take down a mannequin target that looked like President Barack Obama, Buzzfeed reported on Sunday. 

The vendor, Zombie Industries, produces “life-sized tactical mannequin” targets that “bleed” when shot. Photographs of the company’s booth at the convention taken by Buzzfeed show that the company had several sample mannequins displayed for sale, including a clown, a “terrorist,” and a Nazi.

“Someone from the NRA came by and asked us to remove it” a Zombie Industries booth worker told BuzzFeed, referring to the company’s “Bleeding Rocky Zombie” target. “They thought it looked too much like President Obama.”

Buzzfeed asked the worker if the resemblance was intentional.

“Let’s just say I gave my Republican father one for Christmas,” the worker replied.

Oh hahahaha, that’s so funny.

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

So now I’m reading up on Hefazat-e-Islam. The Guardian had a useful piece on April 16.

It starts with tensions, clashes, religious conservatives versus more moderate, progressive voices.

The most recent development is the emergence of a radical conservative Muslim party, Hefazat-e-Islam, as the standard bearer of the religious right. Earlier this month, at a huge rally in Dhaka attended by more than 100,000 according to police, the party issued 13 demands. They included the introduction of measures to stop “alien culture” making inroads in Bangladesh, the reinstatement of the line “absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah” in the nation’s constitution, which is largely secular, and a ban on new statues in public places.

They want it in the constitution that there should be absolute trust and faith in an imaginary being whom no one on earth has ever met. That’s inane. It’s the last thing anyone should demand absolute faith and trust in. “It’s not here, you can’t talk to it or hear it or touch it, no one can, and you must have absolute faith and trust in it, because we order you to.”

But I digress.

But it was Hefazat-e-Islam’s demand that men and women not mix in public – seen by many as a bid to stop women working outside the home – that most worried Akhter, one of tens of millions of female labourers in Bangladesh’s booming garment industry.

“If we are not allowed to work, how will we survive?” asked Akhter, who supports her elderly parents on her monthly wage of 6,500 takas (£55). “Many of our coworkers were abandoned by their husbands. Some families only have daughters, whose parents are old. What will a single mother do? We will not have any means for a living.”

Well, you starve. So do your children, and so do your parents. Sorreee.

They explain that it’s all a misunderstanding though.

“The idea that Hefazat-e-Islam is taking the country back to the medieval age through its demands is propaganda,” said Moinuddin Ruhi, joint secretary of the party. “We are not opposing women’s development … Hefazat demands women refrain from free mixing in society to avoid sexual harassment and incidents such as rape. This does not … mean we want them to refrain from going to work or study. They should go to work and study following the principles of Islam.”

Ohhhh – oh well that’s completely different. You don’t oppose women’s development, you just demand that they refrain from free mixing in society. No problem then! As long as women stay home they can “develop” as much as they want to.

More hell on earth for more people. Fabulous.

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

Well this is scary. Not to say terrifying. As many as half a million Islamists protested in Dhaka to demand the death penalty for everybody who irritated them, according to the BBC.

Clashes between police and Islamist protesters in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka have left at least three people dead and 60 injured.

Up to half a million Hefazat-e Islam supporters gathered in the city, where rioters set fire to shops and vehicles.

The activists are calling for those who insult Islam to face the death penalty.

God damn. That’s the whole population of Seattle! Imagine a whole big city’s worth of people out in the streets to demand death for people who refuse to suck up to a particular religion. Why are human beings so good at stupid and vicious?

On Sunday, throngs of protesters blocked main roads, isolating Dhaka from other parts of the country.

Chanting “Allahu Akbar!” (“God is greatest!”) and “One point! One demand! Atheists must be hanged”, the activists marched down at least six main roads as they headed for Motijheel, AFP news agency reported.

Ya I call that scary.

Hefazat-e Islam wants greater segregation of men and women, as well as the imposition of stricter Islamic education.

The group’s opposition to a national development policy for women has angered women’s groups.

Hefajat-e-Islam draws its strength from the country’s madrassahs, or religious schools.

They’re not schools. All they do is rote memorization of the Koran in Arabic; that’s not teaching and the buildings where it happens aren’t schools.

On Friday, Sheikh Hasina said the government had already met many of the group’s demands.

“Many of these have already been implemented while some are in the process,” she was quoted as telling the Daily Star.

She said the government had already arrested four bloggers for making “derogatory comments” against the Prophet Muhammad and they would be punished if found guilty.

Hell and damnation.

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

The bad idea is contained in

legislation drafted by Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX), chair of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. Smith’s bill would require NSF to promise that any research it funds “advance[s]” national health, prosperity, and security, “is ground breaking,” and is not being supported by another federal agency. In a statement released 30 April, Smith said the bill “improves” on NSF’s current process of peer review “by adding a layer of accountability” intended to “ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent on the highest-quality research.”

Well yes, but there are some layers of accountability that are the wrong kind to add. You could pass a law saying all surgeries are required to get approval from a panel of random people collected at the nearest comic book store, and that would be adding a layer of accountability, but of the wrong kind.

Presidential science adviser John Holdren says it’s the wrong kind.

Holdren said that Smith’s bill, called the “High Quality Research Act,” would wrongly inject lawmakers into a decision-making process that he described as ”the gold standard” for the rest of the world. NSF now judges grant proposals on their “intellectual merit” and on the “broader impacts” of the research on society, and Holdren said that having politicians revise those criteria is fraught with danger.

“I have no objection to looking at the peer-review process to make sure that it is everything it can be,” Holdren said in response to a question after his speech. “But I think … adding Congress as reviewers is a mistake. The basis of peer review is to employ experts in the relevant fields. Most members of Congress are not experts in the relevant fields. They are certainly experts in making decisions under uncertainty on complicated issues. But that does not qualify them to review research proposals in science.”

Different jobs, you see. Different kinds of work; different kinds of expertise.

Also, the knives are out for the social sciences.

Holdren also commented on the interest that Smith and other congressional Republicans have shown in NSF’s social science programs. Last week, Smith sent a letter to NSF asking the agency to explain how five recent grants in the social and behavioral sciences “adhere to NSF’s ‘intellectual merit’ guideline.” Most scientists see that inquiry as part of a broader attack by congressional Republicans on the social sciences. In March, Congress approved an amendment to the 2013 spending bill that would prevent NSF from funding any political science research unless the director certified that it addresses economic development or national security.

Holdren defended the value of social science research and criticized attempts to exclude it from NSF’s portfolio. “Political science research helps us understand the actions of people around the world … and our own democracy,” he said. “Economics research has clarified not only the economic basis for innovation but also its determinants. Social science research has helped us make hurricane warnings more effective, improved methods of instruction in the classroom and the workplace, and manage common resources more efficiently without centralized regulation.”

And yet politicians have to be told that. You’d think they could figure it out for themselves, but those of the congressional Republican type apparently can’t.

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

Miri has a great post on street harassment. One interesting bit:

Some men who want to compliment random women on the street are genuinely good guys who just don’t understand why their comments might be unwelcome. Some men who want to compliment random women on the street are creepy predators. Most are somewhere in between, and guess what? I don’t know you, I don’t know your life, and I have no idea if you’re going to leave it at “Hey, you look good in that dress!” or follow it up with “But you’d look better without it! Har har! C’mon, where’re you going? I know you heard me! Fucking cunt, nobody wants your fat ass anyway, bitch.”

When you compliment a random woman who doesn’t know you, no matter how nice you are about it, there’s a good chance she’s going to freak out internally because for all she knows, you could be that latter type. And I get that it’s really unfair that women would just assume that about you. I get that it sucks that sometimes, expressing totally reasonable opinions like “hey you’re hot” will make women terrified of you or furious at you. That’s not fair.

But if you’re going to lay the blame for that somewhere, for fuck’s sake, don’t blame the woman. Blame all the guys who have called her a bitch and a cunt for ignoring their advances. Blame all the guys who may have harassed, abused, or assaulted her in the past. Blame all the people who may never do such a thing themselves, but who were quick to blame her and tell her to just get over it.

Ya. That applies to more than just street harassment – it applies to quite a few things. It applies to me, for instance. (Doesn’t everything??! No. Not everything does. Contrary to myth, I don’t think that everything does. But this does.) If I don’t smile sweetly when you jeer at me on Twitter, blame all the people who have called me a bitch and a cunt for whatever the hell it was I don’t even remember. If I’m irritable about online harassment and stalking, blame all the people who have been online harassing and stalking me for anything from a few days to almost two years.

But it also applies to other things, including the thing Miri is talking about. It’s all connected. Trigger-happy hostility to women is the underlying issue.

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

Scott Benson’s (no relation) But I’m a Nice Guy

A quick editorial cartoon about the intersection of self-pity, entitlement, rape, territoriality, misogyny and fear of women. You see it all over the place online in the form of Men’s Rights Activists (of whom there are a few reasonable non-misogynists), Men Going Their Own Way, Pick Up Artists, and dudes touting the “Red Pill”, because The Matrix is a good movie. Look any of these up if you have the stomach for it. These are extreme examples, but watered-down forms of these ideas are everywhere.

In lurking their blogs and youtube channels for a while, I’ve noticed that beyond the standard patriarchal chauvinism there is this deep fear of women – what they will do to me, how they will reject me, how they will use me, how they are changing society in a way that does not favor me, how they are making men into something I don’t like, how they are making themselves into something I don’t like, that they won’t give me what I want, and that they won’t give me what I think is rightfully mine. This goes beyond fear of feminism- this is fear of women at its purest. And that, to quote a puppet, leads to anger and hate. It’s sad.

I am a feminist. I think there’s enough ice cream to go around, but it does mean those of us with 3 scoops might have to give one or two up. Also, The Matrix is a fun movie but probably not anything you should be basing a philosophy on.

So that’s why Glendon Mellow tagged both of us yesterday! Bensons. Go Bensons.

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

First, do no harm. That’s a good rule for all of us, not just doctors.

It would be a good rule for anti-vaxxers to pay far more attention to. Consider Marita Howell, who runs a daycare facility in Maroubra, in New South Wales.

Maroubra is one of the nine local areas in NSW identified by the National Health Performance Authority as being “at risk” of outbreaks because of vaccination rates of below 85 per cent.

And you know what else? Howell has a son, age 14, who had chemo for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The chemo destroyed his immune system. He was too sick for school, so he was recuperating at the daycare facility. And oh whoops, two unvaccinated children fuelled an outbreak of chicken pox at that facility.

Westmead Children’s Hospital paediatric oncologist Luciano Dalla-Pozza compares non-vaccination to drink-driving in terms of the danger it presents to cancer patients, whose immune systems are devastated by chemotherapy.

“We’ve had deaths (of cancer patients) from measles and chicken pox because it gets in the lungs and causes severe pneumonia,” Dr Dalla-Pozza said. “If you come into contact with kids on chemo, you put someone else’s life at risk.”

Ms Howell was terrified when the chicken pox outbreak swept her centre. “If you don’t immunise your child, for people like Jonathon that can be life-threatening. The thing that kills kids is not the cancer, but the infections they pick up,” she said.

By law, she can’t exclude the unvaccinated children.

What.a.mess.

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

May 4

First thing in the morning. Again, why Twitter blocking doesn’t work – because any old asshole can reply to someone you’ve blocked and then her sniping at you turns up in your feed. Lucky you.

AmbrosiaX tweets

One more thing, @OpheliaBenson , try doing some actual critical thinking instead of just applauding any article that makes men look bad.

Pfunk-the original @ Gluonsrule tweets

@AmbrosiaX@OpheliaBenson yeah, maybe that will happen.

“One more thing” is it – so there’s a whole series then. “AmbrosiaX” is obsessed with me, and I don’t even know who the fuck she is apart from being someone who spends hours every day sniping at me and other Hated Ones. Yet she accuses me of doing nothing but “applauding any article that makes men look bad.” Is that really what I do nothing but? No.

May 3, again

In reverse order, hence chronological order

Ambrosia X tweets (and tweets and tweets)

@Eunecromancer@aratina@tkmlac@ool0n I’ll tell you what happened with the acid story. As I said, Ophelia blogged about an acid attack and

tried to relate it to her “activism” as though she could be a target for such a horrific attack…

A tweeter who followed many of us (but no one seemed to know him well) said something about OB having

a facial. I think he was trying to make a juvenile jab at her appearance. It definitely was not a

threat. We all said it was inappropriate and he deleted his account, probably out of embarrassment.

I’ll take the lies in order too. No I did not say anything about “my ‘activism’” – I never say anything about my activism, because I’m not an activist, and I don’t claim or pretend to be. What I said was

Interesting. One minute it’s just hacked Facebook accounts, the next it’s acid attacks. Maybe I should start wearing protection.

That’s all. I said it at the end of a post that quoted from a news item about the Bolshoi artistic director who got acid thrown in his face.

The tweeter did not say “something about OB having a facial.” He said

Maybe a vial of acid would do you some good.

Followed by a long-winded version of “you’re incredibly ugly.” Yes, of course part of the idea was to say that a vial of acid in my face would make me less ugly and thus do me some good, but that was only part of the idea. “Ambrosia” announces that it was definitely not a threat. That’s easy for her to say. It’s less easy to say “definitely” when the threat (or “joke” with threat-like overtones) is aimed at you as opposed to someone else. I would feel distinctly uncomfortable – in fact I would feel like a complete shit – looking at a ”Maybe a vial of acid would do you some good” said to someone else and dogmatically announcing it was definitely not a threat. But not “Ambrosia.” “Ambrosia” apparently feels perfectly fine about going on and on and on and on and on about how no threats aimed at me are actually threats and I deserve all the shit thrown at me for musing on the possibility that an extended campaign to throw shit at me could eventually turn violent.

May 3

The shameless lying never fails to surprise me.

A comment on a demented, paranoia-riddled post by David Osorio at Skeptic Ink:

Theo Ffensivatheist

There are some people in the comment section of Butterflies & wheels that are trying to convince (I’m not sure who) that Justin represents a REAL threat & some are seriously talking about bottles of acid being thrown in Womens faces as a real possibility (all without ANY kind of evidence of course). Is there anyone here willing to truthfully say they think they’re trying to be honest & genuine here. Personally i see it as the worst kind of hyperbole &/or downright dishonesty & another example of what we’ve come to expect from many at FtB. The ONLY person who’s even possibly facing any kind of threat is Justin, who’s going to be surrounded by several hundred people, the vast majority of which will disagree on many issues & idea/l/s he holds dear. We can only hope that the most impressionable of those in opposition to his presence don’t try to play the hero. I wish him all the best but can honestly say, “Rather him than me”. I know he’s doing this for all of us. (Even if some don’t realize or appreciate it).

 Daosorios

Why am I not surprised!

Shameless lie. Nobody has said one word about Vacula throwing acid in anyone’s face.

May 1

I was told Vacula is chirping aggressively at me again. Sure enough. I suppose this is by way of demonstrating to a fascinated world that he’s not harassing me in the least and never has been.

Justin Vacula tweets

So, how much longer until Ophelia Benson drops out of #WIScfi speciously claiming she is threatened? She did it once before… #ftbullies

A bystander comments.

Jessie Lewis tweets

@justinvacula Your hatred for others is all that’s keeping you in the public eye, isn’t it?

Justin Vacula tweets

@Jessie_XL I don’t hate. Anyway, feel free to check out my activism and appearances – some of which made global, national, state, local news

Jessie Lewis tweets

@justinvacula You are deliberately offensive to others and then seem angry when they refuse to engage with you.

@justinvacula You have a massive ego as well and bask in the attention you are getting from your petty vendetta.

Vacula tweets

@Jessie_XL I find intellectual dishonesty quite repugnant – when people talk a big game and refuse to defend their ideas with detractors

Deliberately offensive? How? …and I thought offense was the problem of the person claiming offense, not the person giving it?

That’s what he thought?! Well that would explain a lot!

Sure, and rudeness is the problem of the person claiming rudeness, not the person giving it; same with cruelty, aggression, lying – it’s all the problem of the person “claiming” rudeness et al., not the person giving it. All is subjective! Nothing is real! And everything is “the problem of” the person being acted on, not the agent. How very convenient – until of course you are the person being acted on.

April 29 part 3

Because of the sheer weirdness.

April 29 part deux

Dang, it’s hard to keep up at the moment, even with the tiny fraction of the total that I choose to document. My audacity in telling Vacula to leave me alone after he tweeted about hoping I would chat with him at WiS2 has triggered a new avalanche.

Like…

And like

And like

April 29

Russell Blackford tweets

Whether or not you agree with Justin Vacula’s opinions (and I disagree with many of them), this witch hunt against him has to stop.

This “witch hunt”? What witch hunt? I told him not to approach me. That’s not a witch hunt. He’s been relentlessly monitoring and harassing me for almost a year, and I do not want to interact with him in real life. Telling him that is not a “witch hunt.”

Vacula is complaining that I also said that if he didn’t leave me alone I would file a complaint. Well? I’ve told him to leave me alone before and he has never done so, therefore I wanted him to know that I would in fact make an official complaint if he refused to leave me alone at the conference. It’s that simple. He doesn’t leave people alone simply because they ask him or tell him to. More is needed.

And this has nothing to do with Vacula’s “opinions” or “disagreement” – it has to do with actions.

Sara E Mayhew tweets

Report real online stalking/harassment to ISPs. Using the terms irresponsibly like @pzmyers@opheliabenson hurts real victims. #ftbullies

PZ Myers tweets

Exactly. What’s so hard about that? RT @InMyUnbelief: @saramayhew So…don’t approach them. @MsMondegreen@OpheliaBenson

Eristae tweets

@saramayhew@pzmyers@OpheliaBenson
Seriously, why the F is the response to this not, “Oh, you don’t want to talk to me? Okay, I won’t.”

Mayhew tweets

@Eristae@pzmyers@OpheliaBenson they just want to setup a chance to kick someone out. Regardless of whether it’s harassment or not.

Mayhew doesn’t know that, and it’s not true.

Mayhew tweets

@MsMondegreen They are drama-mongering metabloggers acting like high schoolers. NO one should approach them. @pzmyers@OpheliaBenson

There are more like that, but I’m bored with posting them. But I wanted to post a sample because Mayhew has been ordering me to remove her from this page, on the grounds that harassment is a crime.

April 28 item 3

Mayhew is back. I was hoping she would never sneer at me again, then I could refrain from ever mentioning her again. It was not to be.

Sara E Mayhew

#wiscfi is already an unwelcoming atmosphere thanks to @pzmyers @opheliabenson’s decrees of who may approach them. immature unprofessional.

Right. It’s terribly immature and unprofessional to tell a harasser to stay away from you. The mature professional thing to do is just shut up and take it, whatever it is.

April 28 part deux because I missed it before -

Justin Vacula tweets

@caias@OpheliaBenson@karla_porter Too bad Ophelia won’t come on #BraveHero but we appreciate early promo. Maybe she will chat at #wiscfi ?

Ok this is specifically for Vacula: do not approach me at WiS2. Stay away from me.

As you know, ignoring such instructions is grounds for removal. If you don’t stay away from me I will make an official complaint.

April 28

Some guy I don’t know from Adam.

Caias Ward @caias

@karla_porter @OpheliaBenson @justinvacula some people like the bravery of being out of range.

Ophelia Benson

Why did you @ me on this?

Caias Ward

was hoping you would respond to karla_porter since you have been talking about her.

Wut? What’s that first one about? To find that out I had to make some effort, because both Porter and Vacula have blocked me. [And before we go on let's get one thing straight - they're the ones who talk about me, not the other way around. They started talking about me with that podcast in which they lied about the emails I got warning me about the dangers of going to TAM. Vacula refused to correct the lies when I told him they were lies, and instead demanded that I go on his podcast. No. That's not how that works.] So I made that effort, and found what it was about.

Justin Vacula tweets

@opheliabenson – Your blog post mentioning @karla_porter gave me a good giggle. Tune in to #BraveHero Radio tonight and consider calling!

Karla Porter tweets

@justinvacula Seriously, please call in @opheliabenson.

Justin Vacula tweets

@karla_porter@opheliabenson We’d love to have her on the show. Too bad she’s unwilling to have discussion – but she is welcome regardless

That’s so typical of those two. They did it with that podcast about me last summer and they’ve been doing it ever since. It’s such a transparently childish, schoolyardish, bullying game – endlessly taunting someone while at the same time extending aggressive bullying “invitations” to interact (and to give free publicity to their enterprises).

No, I’m not going to have “a dialogue” with hostile sneery people who make a career of taunting me and others. No, I’m not going to “have discussion” with them. No, I’m not going to tune in to one of their podcasts. No, I’m not going to call their podcast. No, I’m not going to be on “the show.”

“Outwest” tweets

@justinvacula@karla_porter@OpheliaBenson afraid to have her hypocrisy  revealed?

Karla Porter tweets

@jeh704@justinvacula – This is what I practice: I wouldn’t talk about anyone I wouldn’t be willing to talk with. – But to each their own.

Caias Ward tweets

@karla_porter@OpheliaBenson@justinvacula some people like the bravery of being out of range.

So that’s where that came from.

As I said, I don’t know Caias Ward from Adam, and I have no idea why he saw fit to tweet at me. Note his reply to my asking him that question -

was hoping you would respond to karla_porter since you have been talking about her.

Well that’s bullshit. He didn’t tweet at me to say “please respond to Karla Porter”; he tweeted at me to say “some people like the bravery of being out of range.”

So that’s one fraction of the bullshit from yesterday and this morning.

April 26

Skepdigger @SkepDirt

If Ophelia Benson wants to stop being called out when she says stupid things, she should stop saying stupid things.

AmbrosiaX

I think I tweeted that to her once

Of course everything I say is stupid, so it’s necessary to “call me out” for saying stupid things whenever I say anything at all in public. Of course “Skepdigger/SkepDirt” knows this, because “Skepdigger/SkepDirt” is infallible when it comes to separating stupid things from not stupid things. Thus it is perfectly reasonable and right that “Skepdigger/SkepDirt” and “AmbrosiaX” and their many colleagues “call me out” every hour of every day. (People in Australia and India and South Korea have to “call me out” later in the day because of the time difference, so the fact that I’m asleep and so not saying anything stupid right that second is beside the point.)

April 24

I haven’t updated this in awhile. But this one is just so…wtf?

felch grogan

I bet this is what the #skepchick backchannel sounds like http://is.gd/O13ts8 #FTBullies #atheismplus #CuntPunt #MeanGirls

[with a link to a video of some random young women doing something or other]

“cunt punt” – hear that #OpheliaBenson? Time to put your gumboots on. I mean you are consistent aren’t you? #FTBullies#atheismplus#frauds

And another wtf?

http://storify.com/ElevatorGATE/conversation-with-opheliabenson-and-slignot

Ophelia Benson@OpheliaBenson

Birthday tea with Claire at Macrina. Almond cupcake w choc ganache for me, cherry lemon coffee cake for her. omg.

7 hours ago

ReplyRetweetFavorite

• 

  April Gardner@slignot

  @OpheliaBenson My dinner is now utterly inadequate. I blame you! :p

  7 hours ago

  ReplyRetweetFavorite

Wut???????????

April 10

One of those…”huh?” items. Included because of the “huh?” factor.

DC in Detroit

It also means you, @OpheliaBenson, who I paid to see speak and was shitty to me for no reason.

The funny thing there is that it sounds like part of an ongoing conversation but isn’t. What is the “it” that also means me? I have no idea. I looked at her feed to try to figure it out but no real luck, except that she’d been feeling irritable a few hours before. Yes but what’s that got to do with me? I don’t know. I asked her – but she didn’t reply. After awhile, when she’d made some more recent tweets, I asked her again, but still no reply. A chickenshit as well as a pest, then. What a brat.

That business about “who I paid to see speak” – the hell she did. She was at the American Atheists conference, apparently, but she didn’t pay to see me speak; she paid to attend the conference despite the fact that I was one of the speakers. I was one of a great many speakers and I’m clearly not of the type that she wants to see. But the implication is some obnoxious “I pay your salary so do my bidding” schtick, which is bratty entitled bullshit.

An hour later - how I was “shitty” to her and why.

It’s obvious enough, I’m sure – her implication was that I ain’t got no expertise so why do I write for Free Inquiry? That was my first ever encounter with her. That’s a meme among the people who target me – I ain’t got no expertise. Notice especially how she doesn’t even admit that’s what she was doing, even though she’s anonymous so it can’t do her any damage. Typical of this kind of crap.

(more…)

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

Josh is wondering why the Obama admin is doing this.

I don’t know, but I think it’s the usual Democratic Party always-feint-to-the-right thing. Why the Democratic Party has such a thing, I also don’t know, but it certainly does. It’s why I don’t always vote for the Dem candidate for president (and then get in huge arguments that go on for years). It seems to me that the only way to convince them that there is a cost in alienating their own side too is to make it cost.

Or maybe in this case it’s not so much a feint to the right as that other fatal urge to be always seen as more Normal and Average and Majority and Wholesome than those wild-eyed crazy leftists and anarchists and feminists. Girls of 13 weren’t taking the morning after pill on Father Knows Best or I Love Lucy so they’d better not be taking them now, either, at least not without a prescription so that they have to tell someone they’ve been fucking.

Whatever the reason is, it pisses me off, especially when he goes around saying he supports reproductive rights for women. No you don’t, dude. You don’t, so don’t say you do.

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

Last month a US district judge ordered the FDA to make the morning-after pill available to females of any age without a prescription. This week the Justice Department announced that it would appeal the ruling.

The judge’s ruling was in response to a lawsuit launched by the Center for Reproductive Rights.

The group was seeking to expand access to all brands of the morning-after pill over the counter, such as Plan B One-Step and Next Choice, so that females of all ages would be able to purchase them without a prescription.

Supporters of the ruling called it a landmark decision, while opponents raised concerns about safeguards being eliminated.

“Safeguards” against teenage girls being able to say no to being pregnant.

The New York Times weighs in.

Appearing before Planned Parenthood’s annual convention last Friday, President Obama pledged his continuing support for women’s reproductive rights. In a speech before the National Academy of Sciences on Monday, Mr. Obama promised to keep science a sphere “not subject to politics” or “skewed by an agenda.”

On Wednesday, his administration betrayed both reproductive rights and science. The Justice Department announced that it would appeal a federal court ruling that would make morning-after pills available without a prescription for girls and women of all ages.

In short he said one thing and did another.

In 2011, the secretary of health and human services, Kathleen Sebelius, overruled the Food and Drug Administration, which had decided, based on scientific evidence, that the pills would be safe and appropriate “for all females of child-bearing potential.” Ms. Sebelius arbitrarily determined that only women 17 and older should have access to the drug.

Then, last month, citing the political nature of Ms. Sebelius’s intervention and finding no “coherent justification” for it, Judge Edward Korman of United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York ordered the F.D.A. to make emergency contraceptives available over the counter to all women, with no age restrictions.

But no. We can’t have teenage girls saying no to pregnancy without someone’s permission – a doctor’s, their parents’, a priest’s - someone’s. The Times sums it up neatly.

Lack of access to safe contraception will not stop adolescents from having sex. Girls who have sex should not be punished with unintended pregnancies.

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

Gita Sahgal explains the situation in Bangladesh, at Open Democracy. (The page is almost unreadable, unfortunately - it’s got so much junk on it that only an average-length paragraph is visible at a time, which is irksome.)

The mass populist uprising occupying Shahbag in Dhaka, calling for ‘maximum punishment’  (the death penalty) for war criminals, was sparked by the triumphant V sign made by a convicted man. He saw his life sentence as a victory.  At first, the political parties courted the Shahbag movement, with the government promising to rush through legislation that  reflected its main demands – allowing the prosecution to challenge the sentence to make it harsher, and amending the law to enable  the Jamaat e Islami  to be put on trial as an organisation. The Jamaat-e-Islami, the largest Islamist political party in Bangladesh, responded to the conviction and death sentence of the Deputy leader of the party, Delawar Hussein Sayeedi, with a country-wide campaign of violence, with particularly vicious attacks on religious minorities, including killing Hindus and destroying temples and homes. Christian Bangladeshis also reported attacks, but in some cases people were too afraid to make an official report.

Abroad, the conviction was referred to as ‘judicial murder’, to capitalise on the revulsion against the death penalty. But Western criticism of the Tribunal process failed to note also that peaceful opposition to religious fundamentalism was met by death threats, assault and murder. All  opposition to them was labelled ‘atheists’, and a label that seemed intended to provoke mass revulsion, promote extra-judicial killings as well as create a climate for  laws criminalising blasphemy.

 Rajib, a young blogger, activist and professed atheist who was targeted online and then murdered,  has become an iconic figure in the movement. The fundamentalists have gone after a number of individual bloggers, beating people up and issuing death threats online or on mobiles. Labelling people as atheists, whether they are or not, puts them at risk of attack, and the bloggers have been targeted as atheists by both Muslim fundamentalists and the government.

I would like to see Scott Stephens explain how that comports with his claim that there is such a thing as “the humble insistence on the ineffability of the will of God in Islam.” If there is, why is it so utterly lost on such a huge number of the followers of Islam? Why are so many of those followers so thoroughly convinced that they know exactly what the will of god is?

In their defense, atheists, humanists and secularists  and declared April 25 anInternational Day to Defend Bangladesh’s Bloggers. With some more protests planned on 4th May in deference to the tragedy currently gripping Bangladesh.  The young bloggers need all the support they can get, for another fundamentalist group has arisen out of nowhere with a familiar list of fundamentalist demands.  On April 7 this group, Hefazat e Islam, staged a mammonth “long march” of half a million people to protest against the mixed sex, peaceful, candlelit gatherings in Shahbagh.  They made 13 demands,which contain many of familiar obsessions of fundamentalists. Apart from demanding a defamation law with the highest punishment ( in other words making blasphemy punishable by death) , Hefazat wants to declare Ahmadiyas to be non-Muslim, attacks practices such as candle lighting and putting up sculptures, opposes sexual mixing and “promotion of Islamophobia among the youth,” wants compulsory Islamic education at all levels and an end to “ungodly education, inheritance laws and unIslamic laws generally.”  Christian and other NGOs are attacked for proselytizing  and “an immediate and unconditional release of all detained Islamic scholars” is demanded.

There again – people (men) who are clearly convinced that they know god’s will and that they are authorized to impose it on anyone who disagrees. Where’s the effing ineffability in that?

These demands are nothing new to Bangladesh, where Islamists have been trying to get a blasphemy law passed since the early nineties, when they went after the writer Taslima Nasrin.

Two decades of cluelessness about the ineffability of god’s will.

And it’s happening in London too.

The conflict between Bangladeshi secularists and fundamentalists has spread to London’s East End where, on Feb. 8th, at Altab Ali Park, young demonstrators supporting Shahbagh clashed with men from the Jamaat-dominated East London mosque.  For older anti-racists, the scenes were remniscent of decades old battles where the police simply protected the aggressors ‘freedom of speech’ and right to threaten and intimidate.

Ah yes the “free speech” right to threaten and intimidate. We’re well familiar with that.

Thousands of leaflets have been distributed from the East London Mosque and across the world labelling prominent bloggers as atheists. Sermons have been read attacking atheists, Hindus and suggestive statements made regarding sexual assault. In Bangladesh, fundamentalists  paraded a banner which said, ‘we demand the death penalty for atheist bloggers because they use obscene language to criticise Allah, Mohammed and the Quran.’  Statements such as these, along with murderous attacks on atheist and free thinking bloggers, need to be considered alongside the leaflets identifying named individuals as atheists and accusing them of insulting religion, to see whether they amount to incitement to  murder. Fundamentalists consider it an obligation for believers to kill apostates; a recent Moroccan fatwa makes this very clear, as does the experience of an atheist from Bangladesh, applying for asylum in Canada.

It’s a very strong current we’re swimming against.

Update: h/t Unrepentant Jacobin on Twitter.

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

We have a fantastic new blogger here – meet Yemisi Ilesanmi. I met her on Facebook a couple of months ago, and read up on her a little more via Google and thought wow…I wonder if she would like to join us. I shared my thought with the rest of FTB and they all thought wow too.

So I am stoked!

Check out her amazing bio:

Yemisi Ilesanmi is a Nigerian woman, resident in UK. She holds a Masters of Law (LL.M) degree in Gender, Sexuality and Human Rights. She is a trade unionist, human rights activist, an author, a poet and sometimes moonlights as a plus size model. She is a passionate campaigner for equal rights, social justice and poverty alleviation. Her debut book ‘Freedom To Love For ALL: Homosexuality is Not Un-African’ is available in paperback and kindle editions on Amazon (www.amazon.com/dp/1481864815).  In sometimes, what she thinks as a past life, she was-  – National Women leader/Assistant National Secretary, Nigeria Labour Party. – Vice President, International Trade Union Congress – Chairperson, ITUC Youth Committee   – International Labour Conference (ILC) Committee Member on Applications of Standards – Founder/President, National Association of Nigerian Female Students She is the founder and coordinator of the campaign group Nigerian LGBTIs in Diaspora Against Anti-Same Sex Laws.

Welcome Yemi!

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

And another ex-Muslim atheist is under threat in another majority-Muslim country. This time the country is Morocco, which has Islam as the state religion, and the ex-Muslim atheist is Imad Iddine Habib, age 22.

He posted a message on Facebook on Tuesday.

Hey Everyone,

I would like to thank everyone who supported me, asked about me by any mean!
Those whom I didn’t reply didn’t add me as a friend, as I am blocked, I couldn’t reply at them!

Thank you All, you made me so proud of being part of this big and united family of rational and free thinkers!

Whatever my fate will be in the next hours, the next days, the next weeks; killed, beaten, jailed, or anything else, I am not sorry for what I have done since I became an activist few years ago, I have shared with many people here thoughts and ideas, and so many awesome memories.

Both police and people are looking for me, I have nowhere to go, my life is at high risk… However, I am Happy, because I am not the only one fighting for a better world, I hope I will be the last man persecuted because of Dogmatisms, Religions, or Myths.

Whatever I’ll be, KEEP FIGHTING, I love you all.

PS: There is no god but Minnie Mouse.

- Imad Iddine Habib.

All that and a sense of humor too.

And a message from a supporter posted 8 hours ago.

I really want to express my deep sympathy for your courage to be who you are. Altho i am still a muslim i think that the free will and the expression of free will is a must for every human being. I’m a secular Muslim that thinks that a state shouldn’t interfere with any religion and has to be a neutral so it can defense every human being without looking to there religion.

It is sad that Morocco is still thinking that they can protect everyone with a state-religion.

Good luck with your fight and just always think that there are also progressive and secular Muslims supporting you and a lot of others atheist.

Grtz Carim Bouzian
Liberal Party Flanders – Belgium

Maryam has a post about him.

The last email the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain received from 22 year old Imad Iddine Habib, the founder of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Morocco (the first atheist organisation in a country with Islam as a state religion), spoke of more threats and a final warning from the Moroccan government.

In the email, he said:

My Father has been interviewed by secret agents at work, they asked him about my activities, my beliefs, my relations and if some foreigners visit me, and they told him that I have to stop, and that I am considered an enemy of the country by showing bad things about it … and [that] it is the last warning before they react.

Since then, he has gone into hiding after security officials raided a home to possibly arrest him.

Maryam to Morocco: hands off!

The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain unequivocally condemns efforts of the Moroccan government to silence Imad. Rather, the government should be prosecuting those who threaten Imad and apostates with death, including members of Morocco’s High Council of Ulemas who recently issued a fatwa decreeing the death penalty for Moroccans leaving Islam.

This is our final warning to the Moroccan Government. Hands off Imad, prosecute those who threaten and incite murder, and respect freedom of expression and thought.

The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain calls on all to condemn the Moroccan government and defend Imad.

On 15 May join us in defending Imad. He is all of us.

Count me in.

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

Scott Stephens, the editor of ABC’s (the Oz one) “religion & ethics” page (as if the two are automatically linked, and in no way antagonistic), takes a look at Dawkins and Twitter.

Yes well…as I’ve mentioned several times lately, I think Dawkins and Twitter are a bad mix. The reasons for my thinking that are encapsulated in the (hilarious) sequence a week or so ago which went

1. provocative tweet
2. heated responses
3. tweet saying Twitter is not friendly to nuance

Provocative tweets can be fun, of course, but there’s provocative and then there’s provocative.

But then again the same can be said about nuance.

For instance Stephens on Dawkins’s provocative tweets about Islam.

The wilful ignorance capable of making such statements is not just dangerously uncritical, to the point that it can nestle comfortably alongside the vilest forms of bigotry and anti-Islamic sentiment; it is also inexcusably ahistorical. It evinces a deliberate effacement of the role played by Islam in the formation of modern science and the intellectual foundations of western civilisation as a whole. Moreover, it ignores the productive dynamism evident throughout the development of Islamic jurisprudence, as well as the complexity, and even beauty, of its formulations concerning gender and the constitution of a good and just society. [emphasis added]

That last bit, with the added emphasis, makes me want to punch something. He’s not subordinated by the “complexity, and even beauty, of its formulations concerning gender.” He wouldn’t be subordinated by them even if he lived in an Islamist theocracy. It’s easy for him to call those “formulations” complex and even beautiful. Theocratic “formulations” concerning gender are all about policing gender; that’s the whole point of them. The more policing, the more subordination of one gender in relation to the other.

And then the bullshit about the constitution of a good and just society. That sounds pretty, until you think about existing societies that are officially and overtly Islamic – and then you recoil.

But in the next paragraph it gets worse.

But acknowledging the history and profound humanism of the Islamic tradition – the belief that the realisation of goodness, beauty and peace on earth is indissociable from the true worship of God…

Spoken like a true god-botherer (and Stephens taught theology for years, and was once a parish minister). Humanism = the belief that the realisation of goodness, beauty and peace on earth is indissociable from the true worship of God. No! Absolutely fucking not. It is the opposite. It is the awareness that we are all we have and that we’re all on a level, in place of the anti-human idea that our real job is to worship a hidden magical being that we can’t have any kind of real access to. Making all the good things dependent on belief in the hidden magical being is an insult to all the humans who are realistic enough to notice that a hidden god might as well be a non-existent god as far as we’re concerned.

He talks more of the same kind of “paradoxical” bullshit toward the end.

The genius of the Judaism, Christianity and Islam in particular is their insistence on relativising every claim to self-sufficiency, as well as every attempt to establish political legitimacy by the bare exercise of power or by the refusal of any greater moral obligation. Whether it be the relentless critique of idolatry in Judaism, or the humble insistence on the ineffability of the will of God in Islam, or the manifestation of divine transcendence through self-giving love in Christianity, religious belief sharpens the polemical edge of political critique.

Backwards. The opposite of the truth. Head in the clouds denialism. If Islam is about “the humble insistence on the ineffability of the will of God” then why are all Islamist theocracies such bossy authoritarian shit-holes? If the will of Allah is ineffable why are the Bangladesh atheist bloggers under threat? Why are atheists in jail in Egypt and Indonesia, simply for being atheists? Why is Imad Iddine Habib in hiding in Morocco? Why is Walid Al-Husseini seeking asylum in Paris after spending 10 months in jail in Palestine for being an atheist?

Not because any of the persecutors think the will of Allah is ineffable.

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