The what? Yes – and by a Labour council at that. The Kensal Rise branch library, at 2 a.m., with an army of cops.

Kensal Rise library was emptied of its books and stripped of the plaque commemorating its opening 112 years ago by Mark Twain in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

Residents who for more than a year campaigned to keep the library open were alerted in the middle of the night that Brent council workers, backed up by police, were stripping the branch of books, furniture, murals painted in the 1930s and the plaque marking the opening in 1900 by Twain. The move follows the council’s failed attempt to clear the library earlier this month, when they were stopped from removing books by protesters.

Members of the writers’ community are not amused.

Local people, backed by literary names, including Philip Pullman and Alan Bennett, have challenged the decision to close six libraries in the north-west London borough at the high court and supreme court, but were told in February no further appeal would be heard. They are now hoping to run the Kensal Rise branch themselves as a volunteer facility, and pledged this morning that the removal of books from the library would not stop them.

“The cowardice of Brent’s Labour council in stripping Kensal Rise library, and the philistinism of unscrewing the brass plaque remembering Mark Twain from its wall, in the middle of the night, would horrify anyone who still recalls Labour’s founding mission to share education, knowledge and hope with the people. We will continue to fight for our library,” said the author Maggie Gee, vice-president of the Royal Society of Literature.

The playwright Michael Frayn also condemned the move. “They took the books out and the plaque down? So the library is now an unlibrary, in the way that people became unpersons in the darkest days of the Soviet Union. I hope they took the titles of the books off as well. Removing unbooks from an unlibrary – who could possibly object?”

The biographer Sir Michael Holroyd said: “The wanton destruction of the Kensal Rise Library – its books removed, its history erased – is a gross act of philistinism which will bring lasting shame to all involved.”

I don’t know the background, but…I don’t like to see libraries closed.

Photos via Save Kensal Rise Library

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

Another message from Sile Lane (Sense About Science):

Dear Petition Signatory,

The planned direct action against the GM wheat experiment at Rothamsted did not happen yesterday. The Take the Flour Back group did not have enough support to storm the field and the local police kept them off Rothamsted’s grounds. Last night hackers attacked Rothamsted Research’s website but it is now back online. Your support has not only helped the scientists bear up under the pressure of the last few weeks but also made the threat to their research retreat in the face of opposition. There has been lots of media coverage in the last few days, including editorials in the Observer and the Times and articles in the Telegraph and Independent (links below).

Some of you came to Rothamsted Park yesterday to tell the protest group why you didn’t want them to destroy publicly funded research. We have gathered some of the comments of support from the 6000 petition signatories as a PDF on our website at http://www.senseaboutscience.org/data/files/Dont_destroy_research_public_support.pdf

If you would like to get general news from Sense About Science you can sign up for our newsletter here http://www.senseaboutscience.org/pages/support-us.html and keep up to date with the fantastic work of the researchers at Rothamsted on their website http://www.rothamsted.ac.uk/

Thank you again for your support.

Best wishes,

Síle Lane

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/27/observer-editorial-gm-crops-research

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/leaders/article3427878.ece

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/9293301/Scientists-insist-GM-wheat-is-safe-as-protesters-vow-to-tear-up-crop.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/steve-connor-opponents-of-this-crop-trial-are-blind-to-the-food-crisis-7792517.html

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

When I sat next to Wafa Sultan at the dinner weekend before last, she asked me if there were any penalties for being an atheist in the US, and I told her there were two states that ban atheists from running for office. She was amazed and incredulous, and I assured her it was true; Tennessee and I think Arkansas, I added.

But I was wrong. It’s not two, it’s seven.

[Update for clarification: these are all articles of state constitutions, and (I'm told) (by Matt Dillahunty) they could never be enforced. I kind of assumed that anyway, but it's better to spell it out.]

Matthew Bulger of American Humanists lists them.

Arkansas, Article 19, Section 1: No person who denies the being of a God shall hold any office in the civil departments of this State, nor be competent to testify as a witness in any Court.

Maryland, Article 37: That no religious test ought ever to be required as a qualification for any office of profit or trust in this State, other than a declaration of belief in the existence of God; nor shall the Legislature prescribe any other oath of office than the oath prescribed by this Constitution.

Mississippi, Article 14, Section 265: No person who denies the existence of a Supreme Being shall hold any office in this state.

North Carolina, Article 6, Section 8 The following persons shall be disqualified for office: Any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God.

South Carolina, Article 17, Section 4: No person who denies the existence of a Supreme Being shall hold any office under this Constitution.

Tennessee, Article 9, Section 2: No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this state.

Texas, Article 1, Section 4: No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, in this State; nor shall any one be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, provided he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being.

I love the Maryland one – no religious test except for belief in the existence of God. Oh is that all!

Via Paul Fidalgo.

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

Is sexual harassment a thing? Is it just a fantasy of whack-job feminists (who of course are all way too ugly to be sexually harassed)? What about the military, for example? Lots of discipline there; probably there’s no sexual harassment in among all that discipline, right?

Well, one third of women in the military reported being sexually harassed in 2008. That seems like a thing. Maybe they were all whack-job feminists, but given the bad press feminism gets, I kind of doubt it.

The ACLU considers it a thing.

While it is estimated that over 19,000 sexual assaults occurred in the military in 2010, a rate far higher than among civilians, the government has failed systematically to investigate complaints, appropriately punish perpetrators, and treat trauma and other health conditions suffered by survivors. The profound personal and social consequences that arise from the government’s systemic failures are powerfully profiled in the new film, The Invisible War. Turning a blind eye to these crimes has allowed them to continue, imperiling the lives of victims and degrading their service.

Is it Talibanesque to think that’s a bad situation?

The US State Department has a sexual harassment policy. Is that Talibanesque? Should the State Department allow sexual harassment to go on its merry way, as one of our precious freedoms that we don’t want the Taliban to destroy?

You be the judge.

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

Annals of horror. “Recovering” children from autism by dosing them with MMS, “Miracle Mineral Solution” aka bleach.

Basically, MMS is 28% sodium chlorite in distilled water. In essence, MMS is equivalent to industrial strength bleach. Proponents recommend diluting MMS in either water or a food acid, such as lemon juice, which results in the formation of chlorine dioxide.

MMS is what got Rhys Morgan started on his anti-quackery career, when he encountered people online recommending it for Crohn’s disease.

David Gorski has learned that now people are recommending it for autism.

Autism One, whose organizers claim that their conference is “all about the science,” featured a talk by a woman whose preferred form of therapy, besides hyperbaric oxygen, is to subject autistic children to industrial bleach in the deluded belief that she can “recover” autism with it. Rivera runs a clinic in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico that she calls AutismO₂ Clinica Hyperbarica. If her website is any indication, Rivera gives autistic children MMS by mouth and by enema. (Yes, she subjects autistic children to bleach enemas.)

Does it make them be not autistic? No.

This is also the second time that I’ve seen autism quacks subjecting autistic children to what is, in essence, potentially nasty industrial chemicals. A couple of years ago, disgraced chemistry professor and mercury warrior Boyd Haley pumped autistic children full of an industrial chelator, claiming it was a “supplement.” Ultimately, Haley drew the attention of the FDA, which shut him down. Now, we’re seeing quacks douse autistic children in bleach, pump their colons full of it, and feed it to them until they start to have fevers and diarrhea, believing that the diarrhea and fever are evidence that the bleach is working to reverse autism. The diarrhea and fever might well be working to do something, but reversing autism is not part of that something. Making children sick is.

Horror.

Thanks to Rhys for alerting me to this new annal.

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

Is a no harassment policy like the Taliban?

Let’s start a little farther back. Is feminism like Nazism?

No, feminism is not like Nazism.

Nazism tried to kill all the Jews in Europe. Feminism does not try to kill all the Jews in Europe.

Nazism killed gays, gypsies, people with disabilities, and political enemies.

Feminism doesn’t kill gays, gypsies, people with disabilities, or political enemies.

Nazism rounded up its enemies and put them in camps.

Feminism does not round up its enemies and put them in camps.

Feminism is not like Nazism. Rush Limbaugh is wrong.

Is a no harassment policy like the Taliban?

No, a no harassment policy is not like the Taliban.

The Taliban forcibly keeps girls out of school.

A no harassment policy does not forcibly keep girls out of school.

The Taliban blows up schools that teach girls.

A no harassment policy does not blow up schools that teach girls.

The Taliban throws acid in the faces of girls going to school. It shoots to death people it suspects of having sex outside marriage. It stones women to death. It beats women for not wearing a burqa, or for showing a little wrist or hair while wearing a burqa. It forbids women to work, get an education, drive, get medical treatment.

A no harassment policy does none of those things.

A no harassment policy is not like the Taliban.

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

I just took my temporary housemate, a black Lab named Cooper, to the beach for a good vigorous outing with the chuckit and tennis ball. We came back. I sat down at the desk, and he asked to go outside. I let him outside. He went around to the garden and then came back and sat outside the sliding screen door staring at me and making a low growly noise in his throat, as he does when he wants me to grasp that he wants something.

I got up to open the sliding screen door so that he could come in. He didn’t come in, but stood still staring up at me, with his roadkill toy* at his feet. I was supposed to join him in the garden for a game of ‘throw the toy.’ I pointed out that we had just played and I wasn’t going to play any more right now, and closed the screen door.

I sat down at the desk, he went around to the garden and then came back and sat outside the screen door staring at me and making a low growly noise in his throat. I got up, saying ‘Cooper you’re being a pest.’ I opened the sliding screen door so that he could come in. He didn’t come in, but stood still staring up at me, with his tennis ball at his feet. ‘You don’t want to play with roadkill; you want to play with ball?’

Cooper in outside the door mode

A flat plush squirrel with Xs for eyes and a tire tread across its middle

For Cooper as a puppy -

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

I’m reading Martha Nussbaum’s new book The New Religious Intolerance, and finding it as exasperating as I expected.

For one thing, there’s what (or who) is not in the index. She puts much of the focus on Islam and what she uncritically calls “Islamophobia,” but who is missing from the index? Maryam. Irshad Manji. Kenan Malik. Taslima. Tarek Fatah. Deeyah.

She argues that “European nations tend to conceive of nationhood and national belonging in ethno-religious and cultural-linguistic terms” [p 94] and that that makes it hard for immigrants to be seen as belonging.

As we’ve seen, there is another option, realized in a wide range of nations around the world: to define national belonging in terms of political ideals, in which immigrants can fully share, despite not sharing the ethnicity, religion, or customs of the majority. [p 95]

That seems to me to be bordering on self-contradictory, unless you add further stipulations about religion and customs (which she does not do).

Look: some tenets of most religions are the opposite of the kinds of political ideals she has in mind (she didn’t suggest Nazi Germany as one example of that kind of nation, nor apartheid South Africa – she did suggest post-apartheid South Africa as one). She means political ideals like equality and universal rights. Well most religions include tenets that rule out equality and universal rights. So do many “customs.” How can it, then, be true that [all] immigrants can [without further ado] fully share in those ideals despite not sharing the customs of the majority?

It’s not that easy. She makes it sound easy, and it’s not easy. It’s not easy and it doesn’t always happen. The demographics of US immigration are handing the Catholic church ever more power; I’m not comfortable saying that, but it’s true. The “good” news is that home-grown religion is reactionary and sexist too, so what the hell, but that doesn’t mean Nussbaum should skate over the tensions quite so fast.

More later.

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

Hey how about this – Melody tweeted a link to a story about two women honored in Norway

 for their outspokenness across cultural lines. Both have immigrant backgrounds, from Algeria and Syria…

Oh! thought I, I might know one of them, and hastily skimmed down the page, and sure enough!

Sara Azmeh Rasmussen, who immigrated to Norway from Syria in 1995, has been carrying on her efforts to promote tolerance, improve the rights of persons regardless of sexual identity and criticize Islam over what she views as its lack of tolerance and repression of women and homosexuals. Rasmussen has been a frequent participant in demonstrations and commentator in the media, not least in newspaper Aftenposten.

I know her. When I was in Stockholm I went to a meeting of a group of atheist-humanist feminists who focus on women’s rights: Christer Sturmark, Sara Larsson, and Ulrika Magnusson of Fritanke, who published Hatar Gud Kvinnor? and were my hosts, and Lena Andersson, Eduardo Grutzky, a couple of other people whose names I have somewhere but don’t remember at the moment – and Sara Azmeh Rasmussen! She’s very, very cool. Everybody there was.

That’s seriously exciting.

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

Indigo Jo takes a look at that myth via the report on sexual harassment in London.

The second [striking thing in a discussion on BBC London] was the suggestion (which I recall Simister saying the police had given to her after her assault) that women should “just ignore it”, which prompted me to write an email to the show (which Feltz read out), because the police have said the same thing to people suffering from the anti-social behaviour of local yobs and to people with disabilities who are being harassed by yobs or haters. It’s a fallacy particularly beloved of teachers as well, who will say the same to a child who complains of being teased in the playground (even if the “teasing” is not just verbal or if it is stopping them going about their business): “ignore it and it will go away”. The problem is that it just is not true: if you ignore a harasser who is trying to get a reaction, they will escalate their behaviour to physical intrusions and assaults, as has been noted to happen in the playground and the classroom and in cases of sexual harassment, until they get what they want. The only way of dealing with them is for them to be fought off, or for someone in authority to come between the persecutor and the victim.

It’s one of those platitudes like “the best antidote to bad ideas is better ideas.” That sounds good, but it’s not always true, and it’s obviously not always true. If that were true, bad ideas would never prevail, because better ideas would just always automatically trump them. Life isn’t like that. Same with the dreamily mistaken idea that if you ignore something nasty, it will [invariably] go away. Try that on a predator, for example.

The “ignore it and it goes away” myth is an example of the “just world” fallacy, in which people defend their belief in a “just world” by pretending that someone who is continually suffering must deserve it somehow. It also enables people to get out of taking responsibility for wrong they see happening. In this case, there is an “obvious answer” to the problem which the victim can easily make work for him- or herself by just ignoring the harassment for long enough, or to put it another way, just putting up with it. It gives the teacher or police officer an easy way of responding to a situation rather than tackle the difficult job of making the harassment stop, as is their duty, and blame the victim (and brand them a nuisance) if the behaviour continues.

The “just world” fallacy – I hadn’t heard that before, and it’s spot-on.

 Of course, the response may be appropriate when the complaint is just about a little bit of teasing, but there is a line between that and persistent harassment or physical assault of any kind…

Precisely. A little bit of teasing is not persistent harassment. Persistent harassment is not a little bit of teasing. It’s good to get these things clear.

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

Surprise shock revelation: there is sexual harassment in London.

The harrassment ranges from wolf-whistling and lewd comments to physical groping and sexual assault.

Campaigners say that reported cases represent “the tip of the iceberg” and that authorities can no longer afford to ignore the issue.

Research released today by the End Violence Against Women (EVAW) coalition shows 41 per cent of women under the age of 34 have been on the receiving end of sexual harassment in the street.

Blacklist! Witch hunt!! Innocent until proven guilty!!! Feminazis!!!!

Plus, you’re ugly!!!!!

The true extent of sexual harassment across Britain is difficult to judge. Campaigners say there is an acute shortage of academic studies looking into women’s experiences. But anecdotal evidence and the few studies that exist suggest unwanted sexual attention is frighteningly common. Fiona Elvines, from the Rape Crisis Centre, south London, is one of the few academics researching public sexual harassment for a PhD. “The issue has been trivialised for so long that is hasn’t been seen as a valid subject to study,” she said. “But the effect it has is enormous, from everyday decisions women have to make to avoid such harassment – like pretending to talk on your phone – to longer term effects on how they view their bodies.”

Whiners! Victims!! Waaaaaaa!!! Sluts!!!! Bitches!!!!!

Sexual harassment victims speak out

Lisa, Bath

“It seems quite minor, but for me it really summed up how some men are such knobs sometimes. I was walking across [town]. A guy shouted ‘hello’ at me, I ignored him and carried on walking. He then shouted ‘what, not good enough for you? It really angered me that he turned his douchebaggery round on me. Suddenly, in his mind, he’s not an ass for shouting at me, it’s that I’m a bitch because I ignored him. So typical.”

Smile, you bitch!

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

More bad news – two warring rebel groups in northern Mali have decided to resolve their differences by…turning northern Mali into an Islamist state. Yeah, that’s the way to do it!

Two rebel groups that seized northern Mali two months ago have agreed to merge and turn their territory into an Islamist state, both sides say.

The Tuareg MNLA, a secular rebel group, and the Islamist group Ansar Dine signed the deal in the town of Gao, spokespeople said.

Ansar Dine, which has ties to al-Qaeda, has already begun to impose Sharia, or Islamic law, in towns such as Timbuktu.

Creep creep creep, Islamism expands its stranglehold week by week.

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

Lady Gaga has canceled a concert in Indonesia after religious bullies (Islamist chapter) threatened violence against her.

Attaboiz – you do that – get together in a big bunch and threaten a woman for performing, and express a wish that she be tortured for eternity. Sucks to be you.

Police in Indonesia had refused to issue a permit for the US pop star after Islamic groups objected to her show, claiming it was too vulgar.

The hardline Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) had threatened to try to stop Lady Gaga getting off the plane.

Islamists 1, secularism 0.

The Islamist FPI had threatened violence if the concert went ahead, calling Lady Gaga a “devil’s messenger” who wears only a “bra and [underpants]“.

Habib Salim Alatas, the group’s FPI Jakarta chairman, said the cancellation was “good news” for Indonesia’s Muslims.

“FPI is grateful that she has decided not to come. Indonesians will be protected from sin brought about by this Mother Monster, the destroyer of morals,” he told AFP news agency.

He added: “Lady Gaga fans, stop complaining. Repent and stop worshipping the devil. Do you want your lives taken away by God as infidels?”

Because he knows that’s going to happen.  Habib Salim Alatas, stop complaining. Repent and stop worshipping a bigoted puritanical misogynist shit. Do you want your life taken away by god as a bullying asshole?

Indonesia’s conservative Religious Affairs Minister, Suryadharma Ali, also welcomed the cancellation.

“I strongly believe this cancellation will benefit the country,” he said.

“Indonesians need entertainment and art which have moral values.”

This is not the first time that Lady Gaga has faced objections during her Asian tour.

Her concert in South Korea in April was made an adults-only event following protests from Christian groups.

Protests also took place in the Philippines, with Christian groups accusing her of being blasphemous.

Comrades!

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

Justin gets trash-talk too; he gets a Christian guy calling his infant daughter “ugly.”

Isn’t that nice? Isn’t that just how people ought to be to each other?

Fortunately she could pose for a dictionary definition of “adorable,” but the ugliness of saying things like that remains unchanged.

I don’t get this at all. I’m probably sheltered, or clueless, or something, but I don’t. I say very harsh things about the pope, and various atheist-bashers, and theocrats – but even then I don’t taunt them for being ugly or fat or old or bald or short or any other physical thing. I don’t. And I don’t understand the mentality of people who do – apart from psychopaths, that is. I don’t understand non-psychopathic people who (by definition) have some conscience and some empathy and still talk that kind of shit about people.

Ah well. You’re a beautiful baby, Zoe Griffith.

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

Guest post via Bernard Hurley

I have just received the following email from London Skeptics in the Pub. It might be of interest to anyone thinking of going to Rothamsted tomorrow:

====================================================

Dear Bernard Hurley

Just a quick note for folks who are thinking of, or are attending the counter protest against the needless vandalism of publicly funded research being conducted at Rothamsted Park tomorrow in Harpenden.

Mark Henderson has put his chapter on GM in The Geek Manifesto online, if you’d like some further reading: http://geekmanifesto.wordpress.com/2012/05/24/the-geek-manifesto-on-gm-crops/

It looks like it’ll be a nice sunny day for a protest, or failing that, a picnic.

Please remember that this is a PEACEFUL protest, and Rothamsted would prefer no protests – for or against ( http://www.senseaboutscience.org/pages/rothamsted-letter-to-signatories.html ) – taking place tomorrow.

Jules, from Geek in the Gambia has written a blogpost on directions and guidlines for the counter-protest and directions to the site here: http://geekinthegambia.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/guidelines-for-protest-in-rothamsted.html

Transport: National Rail from Bedford to Brighton (there are some engineering works from certain stations on Sunday, so please check before travelling). For those of you in London, trains depart from London St Pancras. Trains are every half-hour and take about 30mins to get there. Return ticket will cost £12.70 Timetable: http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/service/timesandfares/London/HPD/tomorrow/0930/dep/tomorrow/1130/dep

If you’re wondering who to look out/gravitate towards, The Pod Delusion will be there; So look out for James O’Malley and Liz Lutgendorff. Dr Evan Harris will be there, along with a band of trusty scientists.

As always, take some sensible shoes, a hat, some sunblock, drink plenty of liquids and remember to dispose of your litter sensibly. We’re no ruffians.

Best,

Sid P.S. I’ll be at Conway Hall for CaSE Director Imran Khan’s lecture, but hope to join you all after we’re done. Details of future meetings can be found on http://london.skepticsinthepub.org

You can also find us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/London-United-Kingdom/London-Skeptics-in-the-Pub/13256221934

And follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SITP

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