Posts Tagged ‘ FTB ’

But how consolingly ugly

Jul 13th, 2015 3:42 pm | By

Via Hilda Bastian, via Project Gutenberg, a George du Maurier cartoon from 1895. It’s extraordinary how little we’ve moved on from that.

Read the rest

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



Future toast

Jul 13th, 2015 3:20 pm | By

This has me wondering if it would really be that bad to live in Oklahoma, or maybe Kansas – this article in the New Yorker about the fact that when the Cascadia subduction zone finally snaps, the resulting tsunami will wipe out everything west of the I-5 freeway that runs from southern California to the Canadian border at Blaine, Washington. I live a couple of miles west of I-5. The article is titled The Earthquake That Will Devastate Seattle.

When the next very big earthquake hits, the northwest edge of the continent, from California to Canada and the continental shelf to the Cascades, will drop by as much as six feet and rebound thirty to a hundred feet to

Read the rest

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



First of all she’s a woman

Jul 13th, 2015 12:50 pm | By

Yet again I’m surprised. Some women athletes decide not to build muscle, because they’re girrrrrrrls.

The Times starts with Serena Williams, who has muscles. She plays tennis – muscles come in handy.

Williams, who will be vying for the Wimbledon title against Garbiñe Muguruza on Saturday, has large biceps and a mold-breaking muscular frame, which packs the power and athleticism that have dominated women’s tennis for years. Her rivals could try to emulate her physique, but most of them choose not to.

Despite Williams’s success — a victory Saturday would give her 21 Grand Slam singles titles and her fourth in a row — body-image issues among female tennis players persist, compelling many players to avoid bulking up.

So…they … Read the rest

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



The self-justifying loop

Jul 13th, 2015 12:19 pm | By

I’m re-reading Mistakes Were Made, by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson. That’s the one about self-serving bias aka cognitive dissonance, and all the exciting ways it plays out.

One item –

…if we have enslaved members of another group, deprived them of decent education or jobs, kept them from encroaching on our professional turfs, or denied them their human rights, then we evoke stereotypes about them to justify our actions. [p 60]

Thunk. Yes we do, don’t we. Consider racism in America. Doesn’t that just exactly describe our history?

  1. Slavery
  2. Grudging emancipation, with compensation for the slaveholders and penury for the former slaves
  3. Restoration of slavery in all but name through Jim Crow laws
  4. Segregation throughout the country, with
Read the rest

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



To encourage people to take personal responsibility

Jul 13th, 2015 11:16 am | By

The Tories are all excited about a new way to shred the remaining social safety net. The UK could become even more like the US! Where an illness can make you homeless in an instant!

David Cameron is prepared to look at making workers pay into flexible saving accounts to fund their own sick pay or unemployment benefits, Downing Street has confirmed.

The idea was first floated by Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, who said he was “very keen” to have a debate about encouraging people to use personal accounts to save for unemployment or illness, even though it is not official government policy.

Sure. Fuck unions, fuck collective bargaining, fuck benefits, fuck pensions and … Read the rest

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



Those zany Marxist libertarians

Jul 13th, 2015 10:54 am | By

Lejla Kurić did a public Facebook post on Saturday linking to a catalogue of the murdered men and boys of Srebrenica. You scroll down it and it goes on and on and on.

The third comment was from a denier.

Stephen Browne There was no genocide in Srebrenica. Noam Chomsky can prove that.

The hell he can.

Via this route, I found an article by Ed Vulliamy the day after ITN won its libel suit against Living Marxism, March 15 2000. I’m permanently fascinated by Living Marxism, because they haven’t gone away, they’ve only mutated into their own opposite (or met themselves traveling in the other direction), and they’re still covering the landscape with bullshit.

[H]istory – the

Read the rest

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



Butterflies and Wheels 2015-07-12 17:38:59

Jul 12th, 2015 5:38 pm | By

David Olusoga on Britain and slavery.

The history of British slavery has been buried. The thousands of British families who grew rich on the slave trade, or from the sale of slave-produced sugar, in the 17th and 18th centuries, brushed those uncomfortable chapters of their dynastic stories under the carpet. Today, across the country, heritage plaques on Georgian townhouses describe former slave traders as “West India merchants”, while slave owners are hidden behind the equally euphemistic term “West India planter”. Thousands of biographies written in celebration of notable 17th and 18th-century Britons have reduced their ownership of human beings to the footnotes, or else expunged such unpleasant details altogether. The Dictionary of National Biography has been especially culpable in

Read the rest

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



The fox is INSIDE the hen house

Jul 12th, 2015 5:16 pm | By

Golly. That bozo Abdullah al Andalusi, who goes on The Big Question to say stomach-turning theocratic things, worked at the Inspectorate of Constabulary until someone belatedly noticed him on tv. Bit of a blunder there.

For almost two years Abdullah al Andalusi, led a double life, the Telegraph can reveal.

By night, he taught that the terror group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) was “no different to Western armies,” said that “kaffirs,” non-Muslims, would be “punished in hell” and claimed that the British government wanted to destroy Islam.

By day, using a different name, he went to work for the same British government at the London offices of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), the official regulator

Read the rest

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



Just a tiny drop

Jul 12th, 2015 4:47 pm | By

Bill Cosby gets squeally-excited about the powers of a potion that makes girls flop down and open their legs.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtZwL4c2JYA

Hellooo America. Very amusing.… Read the rest

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



Biblical I don’t think so

Jul 12th, 2015 4:10 pm | By

More from the “Biblical” pig at Biblical Gender Roles, this time about whether or not it’s ok for a man to insist on having sex with his wife even if she’s in pain. This guy is so full of shit…and cowardly with it, because he’s anonymous.

Question 1 – Was the husband wrong for having sex with his wife while she was pregnant and in pain?

It depends. Had he just had sex with her in the last few days? Then perhaps he should have put her need to not experience more pain and discomfort ahead of his need for sex. But if she had been in pain for weeks or a month and he finally came to her

Read the rest

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



Non-random mass murder

Jul 12th, 2015 11:55 am | By

Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre. The remembrance didn’t go smoothly. The Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić was chased away by protesters throwing stones.

Mr Vucic is a former radical Serb nationalist who served under Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic in the late 1990s.

He is now a pro-Western politician seeking to steer Serbia into the European Union. His government managed to secure support from its ally Russia on Wednesday to veto a UN resolution calling the events in Srebrenica a genocide.

Well that would explain why the Bosnian protesters were pissed off.

It was a genocide. They were killed because they were Bosnian; that’s genocide. “Ethnic cleansing” is genocide.

Tens of thousands of people came to

Read the rest

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



How to silence the peasants

Jul 12th, 2015 11:26 am | By

Still at it. Still muddying the waters by saying Tim Hunt was sacked by UCL, when he was never employed by UCL in the first place. Simon Heffer in the Telegraph:

How to silence Sir Tim’s bullies

University College, London is a great institution that has diminished itself by sacking Sir Tim Hunt, the Nobel laureate who made an entirely harmless but silly remark about women.

Except that it didn’t “sack” him.

Also, the claim that “silly” dismissive contemptuous remarks about women are “entirely harmless” is highly debatable. (I think they’re just flat-0ut wrong, but then that’s what I think, and it’s debatable.)

UCL acted after a particularly nasty display of mob rule by denizens of Twitter, where
Read the rest

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



What’s up, Doc?

Jul 12th, 2015 10:17 am | By

Oh good grief. Unconscious sexism – it gets in everywhere.

A BBC story about the finding of a medieval ring in Norfolk.

The ring, found by a metal detectorist in South Creake, Norfolk, dates from between 1350 and 1430.

Dr Jonathan Good, author of The Cult of St George, said the ring “attests to the popularity of St George” and may be linked to a guild devoted to the saint.

Dr Good, who is associate professor of history at Reinhardt University, in Georgia in the US, said the ring “could have have owned by a guild member. It could have been a way of them showing their dedication”.

“It is in these pre-reformation times that St George

Read the rest

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



Elementary good manners by way of an introductory salutation

Jul 11th, 2015 5:54 pm | By

One from more than three years ago, March 20 2012: I get email:

I got one today from someone who has commented here a few times as nmcc or NMcC, and who commented yesterday to tell me how wrong I am about the word “cunt” and to say “Sarah Palin is a cunt.” I deleted that comment and put him – his email address showed he’s a Nigel – in moderation. The message I got this morning expressed surprise at the deletion of the comment. (It started with “Hi” – this is more significant than you might think.) I replied, brusquely,

Really? You would have thought “Sarah Palin is a cunt” was well within my commenting policy? I’ve been

Read the rest

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



A boring job, but somebody has to do it

Jul 11th, 2015 1:10 pm | By

Some words of wisdom from Janet Stemwedel:

Janet D. Stemwedel ‏@docfreeride 3 hours ago
Next time you think you “hear” outrage online, imagine it is being delivered in a bored voice. Pointing out racism, sexism, etc. is BORING.

But even though it’s boring, pointing out words & deeds that harm others is NECESSARY to get folks doing them to notice, care, stop doing it.

Surely it’s outrageous that folks need repeated reminders that saying & doing harmful stuff is harming people, & that harming people is bad…

But sometimes it feels like the “outrage” is coming from folks who want to be able to do & say harmful stuff w/o being called on it.

With “sometimes” defined as “all … Read the rest

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



He did say some stupid things which cannot be supported

Jul 11th, 2015 12:57 pm | By

Maybe this will persuade the ragers to shut up at last: Paul Nurse says what Tim Hunt said was not acceptable. Sarah Knapton, science editor at the Telegraph, reports.

Sir Paul Nurse, a joint-Nobel Prize winner and friend of Sir Tim, told the Telegraph the embattled professor’s “chauvinist” comments had “damaged science”.

He added that since Sir Tim stood down last month, Sir Paul has been sent hundreds of vicious letters. Some argue that the Royal Society has not gone far enough in its condemnation of the Noble Laureate, while others criticise the 350-year-old institution for not backing the beleaguered scientist.

“Some have threatened to do things to my body parts,” said Sir Paul, in a weary tone.

Read the rest

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



The foundation of your personality

Jul 11th, 2015 11:08 am | By

Want to take a goofy online quiz? Here’s one that claims to be asking What Is Your Gender Identity? Only, that’s odd, because I answered the questions as truthfully as I could (as usual with goofy quizzes, many questions offered zero replies that really fit) and I got “you are Cis-Male.” Well, no, that’s not right.*

But the questions are fatuous anyway, because they’re mostly about superficialities. To be accurate my replies to several of them would have had to be “I don’t care one way or the other.”

But then it’s understandable that the questions are fatuous, because the opening claim is fatuous squared:

Your gender is the foundation of your personality and indicates how you choose to express

Read the rest

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



Guest post: A choice by a feminist is not necessarily a feminist choice

Jul 10th, 2015 6:22 pm | By

Originally a comment by sambarge on Only when it is nothing more than a personal choice.

When the practice of hijab becomes nothing more than a personal choice, only then may it be considered a feminist statement.

I would argue, even then, that the choice to wear a hijab would be feminist neutral. There is nothing inherently feminist in the choice to wear a hijab and its history (whatever it may develop into in the future) is rooted in oppression.

A choice by a feminist is not necessarily a feminist choice. Allow me to give a non-veiling example:

25 yrs ago, I was an under-grad, thinking about grad school and my unwieldy last name. My parents were Italian immigrants … Read the rest

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



Nothing is perfect

Jul 10th, 2015 5:47 pm | By

Dr Amy Tuteur says breastfeeding isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and trying to force it to be can be dangerous.

The scientific literature contains new and disturbing reports of infant deaths due to hypernatremic dehydration as a result of inadequate breast milk consumption, deaths from falling out of mothers’ hospital beds as a result of pressure to room-in to promote breastfeeding, and, most recently, reports of hyponatremia due to dilution of breastmilk with water. It’s only a matter of time before there are illnesses and deaths from contaminated breastmilk bought and traded on the internet.

Why are these babies dying? They’re dying because lactivists are lying, exaggerating the benefits of breastfeeding far, far beyond anything in the

Read the rest

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



Very defiant

Jul 10th, 2015 4:03 pm | By

Via Ken White at Popehat, a horrible story of a judge abusing her power over children in a bad divorce case.

Judge Lisa Gorcyca, a judge in Oakland County, Michigan, is getting quite a lot of press this week for sending three kids to juvenile detention.

Judge Gorcyca doesn’t preside in criminal court. She doesn’t rule on delinquency petitions in juvenile court. She’s a judge in the Family Division. And she sent three kids to juvenile detention — and specifically ordered them separated — because they didn’t obey her orders to cultivate a warm relationship with their estranged father.

You can read about it here, or here, or here, or here, or at Reason.

She what??

My god, who … Read the rest

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