A loose end

Jul 30th, 2010 5:25 pm | By

So, as I mentioned, a late reply to Mooney’s post about me on July 12.

We stopped allowing Benson to comment here back in mid 2009, for very good reasons–among other things, she was sending us emails demanding to have other posters’ comments deleted. We had a better solution.

You can read the thread where they made this reasonable decision. My comments are numbers 35, 37, 90 and 92. They’re not flamey. Then at 104 we get TB:

When Ophelia Benson claims through her “questions” that Chris and Sheril have no evidence she is not telling the truth. It’s one thing for people who haven’t read the book to assert this – she has the book.
So let

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Incomplete

Jul 30th, 2010 1:17 pm | By

Mooney has done another “What Tom Johnson has taught Me” post. It repairs some previous omissions, so it is a small improvement, but it is flawed.

I regret that I gave this story undue prominence, and I want to apologize to all who were affected by that action.

No he doesn’t, not really. As usual, he omits some people, so he doesn’t want to apologize to all who were affected by that action. He doesn’t want to apologize to me, for instance. I was affected by that action. He shouldn’t give himself the moral credit for a blanket apology when he’s not in fact making one.

Mooney goes on to insinuate that gnu atheists did something to make Tom … Read the rest



Do alligators count as fish for Catholics? *

Jul 30th, 2010 | Filed by

No. Do Catholics count as lunch for alligators? Yes.… Read the rest



Saira, 19, recalls attempted honour killing *

Jul 30th, 2010 | Filed by

“My mum said, ‘He is your husband, even if he kills you we don’t care’.”… Read the rest



Sherrod plans to sue Breitbart *

Jul 30th, 2010 | Filed by

Brent Bozell, of right-wing Media Research Center, said “I hope this champion of honesty will stop lying about Fox News.”… Read the rest



Gove welcomes “atheist” schools *

Jul 29th, 2010 | Filed by

Because he thinks a secular school is an “atheist” school.… Read the rest



UK govt response to petition to ban halal slaughter *

Jul 29th, 2010 | Filed by

“The Government recognises the needs of certain communities” to kill animals without stunning them first.… Read the rest



Extended interview with Hitchens *

Jul 29th, 2010 | Filed by

“I’ve only got one side of the brain that works. The other is sort of walnut-sized. I think I’d do better to stay with the essayistic form.”… Read the rest



Ron Lindsay on how to discuss religion *

Jul 29th, 2010 | Filed by

Religious truth-claims should be subject to examination and criticism, just like any other claims about reality.… Read the rest



Visible or Invisible: Growing up Female in a Porn Culture

Jul 28th, 2010 | By Gail Dines

At a lecture I was giving in a large West Coast university in the Spring of 2008, the female students talked extensively about how much they preferred to have a completely waxed pubic area as it made them feel “clean,” “hot” and “well groomed.”  As they excitedly insisted that they themselves chose to have a Brazilian wax, one student let slip that her boyfriend had complained when she decided to give up on waxing. Then there was silence. I asked the student to say more about her boyfriend’s preferences and how she felt about his criticism. As she started to speak other students joined in, only now the conversation took a very different turn. The excitement in the room gave … Read the rest



Lauryn Oates on cultural relativism and FGM *

Jul 28th, 2010 | Filed by

Why do we worry so much about alienating people who hold down screaming little girls and butcher their genitals?… Read the rest



What we can do

Jul 28th, 2010 11:19 am | By

Christina Patterson accepts a little too much.

 I accept that people should, except in certain professional situations which involve dealing with the public, be allowed to wear whatever they like, and that laws which prevent this are self-defeating, and that you can’t stop parents, or rabbis, teaching little boys that adult women shouldn’t even be brushed against on a bus, and I accept that some of these things are an inevitable consequence of a modern, and in many ways magnificent, multi-cultural society.

I don’t think we have to accept that you can’t stop parents, or rabbis, teaching little boys that adult women are contaminants. We have to accept that you can’t forcibly, physically stop them, but we don’t have … Read the rest



Gnu atheists close the bar

Jul 28th, 2010 11:05 am | By

It was fun last night. PZ was there, Cam and Josh were there, and about thirty other interesting people were there. We bayed for blood, we cooked little children into soup, we tore up holy books, we made plans for world domination. The usual.… Read the rest



UK: agencies tackling “faith-based abuse” *

Jul 28th, 2010 | Filed by

Progress has been made, but some churches decline “help”; they still abuse children as “witches.”… Read the rest



Ashtiani’s cellmate was there when she was sentenced *

Jul 28th, 2010 | Filed by

“She just cried and I didn’t see her without crying until the last day I spent time with her in prison.”… Read the rest



Multiculturalism and its discontents *

Jul 28th, 2010 | Filed by

Little boys treating women like sources of contamination; racism; female genital mutilation.… Read the rest



Counterproductive Online Journalism

Jul 27th, 2010 | By Carl Anders

It is said that rejection is just the things you say to yourself everyday, except said by someone else. To a failed writer, this balance of rejection is firmly in the court of the rejecting editors encountered to date at this stage, but the maxim is similar in the world of Web 2.0. Blogs, comments, forums, social networking, it’s the stuff you say in your head, except communicated as text, but the difference is it’s unlikely you would say them to anyone’s face (at least not sober).

However, this caveat is often used to somehow dampen the impact of the internet. It’s just the internet; no one takes it seriously do they? Well, do they? As the print media will … Read the rest



Faith-healing in Oregon *

Jul 27th, 2010 | Filed by

Take a look at Alayna Wyland, age 8 months, and the untreated hemangioma over her eye.… Read the rest



The worst thing to be is an Afghan woman *

Jul 27th, 2010 | Filed by

Stories abound of young women betrothed as toddlers, exchanged for fighting dogs or to pay debts, beaten and raped by their husbands.… Read the rest



Arundhati Roy the reactionary *

Jul 27th, 2010 | Filed by

Roy has chosen to make progress—along with democracy—her bête noire.… Read the rest