At the fair. Chris Moos, Abhishek Phadnis and a guy I won’t name. Chris and Abhishek you already know.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
At the fair. Chris Moos, Abhishek Phadnis and a guy I won’t name. Chris and Abhishek you already know.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
To the London School of Economics Student Union’s bullying of the LSE student Atheism Secularism and Humanism group at LSE’s freshers’ fair yesterday.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
When in doubt, kill the woman. Brace yourself: Emma Batha’s special report in the Independent begins with a horror.
… Read the restTwo months ago, a young mother of two was stoned to death by her relatives on the order of a tribal court in Pakistan. Her crime: possession of a mobile phone.
Arifa Bibi’s uncle, cousins and others hurled stones and bricks at her until she died, according to media reports. She was buried in a desert far from her village. It’s unlikely anyone was arrested. Her case is not unique. Stoning is legal or practised in at least 15 countries or regions. And campaigners fear this barbaric form of execution may be on the rise, particularly in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Here we go AGAIN – London School of Economics student Atheist Secularist and Humanist society members Chris Moos and Abhishek Phadnis are being threatened with expulsion from LSE’s freshers’ fayre for…wearing a Jesus and Mo T shirt.
I saw it first via a tweet by the NSS (the National Secular Society):
Secularism UK @NatSecSoc
Not again! LSE Student Union
@lsesu are throwing@ahsstudents group out of freshers’ fayre for wearing@JandMo Tshirts#Freedomofexpression
And a follow-up tweet:
Secularism UK @NatSecSoc
@bma@ahsstudents We’ve heard it from the LSE Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society President. They’re being told to leave right now.
… Read the restListen up LSE: I am coming to your university
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“WaddleDee” finally produced an explanation of sorts.
Ophelia Benson @OpheliaBenson
@chsvns But my question is WHY is it fun.
WaddleDee @chsvns
@OpheliaBenson Because it is a deviant act that I can get away with.
Ok let’s think about that. A deviant act – how is it a deviant act, and why?
Telling people they’re ugly (fat, old, disgusting, etc) is reprobated because it’s seen as cruel. It’s rightly seen as cruel. Isn’t it? Is that at all controversial? If it’s not controversial, should it be controversial? Is it the kind of callous, brutal, indifferent “seen as” that other brands of conventional wisdom have been shown to be? Should we question that view just as we question racism or homophobia or … Read the rest
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I’m attempting to make use of an opportunity for enlightenment here, by asking someone to explain why it’s pleasurable and fun to skip over the substantive content of a disagreement and just call people ugly (fat, old, smelly – the usual shame-labels) instead.
It starts with someone who is a complete stranger to me tweeting at me.
… Read the restWaddleDee @chsvns
@OpheliaBenson @thunderf00t I agree. Nice of you to admit that thundef00t is right about something.
Ophelia Benson @OpheliaBenson
@chsvns You agree with what? Right about what?
WaddleDee @chsvns
@OpheliaBenson @thunderf00t the part about him being a mensch, and the part him observing that you are ugly.
Ophelia Benson @OpheliaBenson
@chsvns So, to be clear, you’re tweeting me to tell me I’m
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
… Read the restMike Booth: @somegreybloke I’ve been informed that wasps sting while flies do not. If you need advice on animals or rape, @Thunderf00t should be your go-to-guy.
PZ Myers: @pzmyers I’m quite enjoying watching @somegreybloke school @Thunderf00t
Ophelia Benson: @OpheliaBenson @pzmyers @somegreybloke @Thunderf00t QUITE enjoying? It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in awhile
thunderf00t: @thunderf00t @OpheliaBenson OPHIE! There’s gotta be a joke in there somewhere about u not looking in the mirror often.
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Now to excerpt a little.
… Read the restIn any case, the part where he kind of agrees with anti-rapist educators is over (we’re about 30 seconds in) – next up, the “HOWEVER…”
However, there is part of this video – which is a very widely seen message online – which from my seat is just so bloody stupid. And this is the sentiment that just because something is against the law, that you should under no circumstances take steps to reduce your risks in such an environment.
Got that? The first argument that Thunderf00t is going to tackle is the one that states “that you should under no circumstances take steps to reduce your risks in such an environment.”
“Under no
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
I’ve no time to excerpt or annotate now because I have to read and read and read and read, but in the meantime – you should know about Mike Booth’s NINE PART demolition of Phil Mason aka Thunderfoot’s rape-apology video. It starts here and goes on for EIGHT MORE which is dedication beyond the whatsit.
(Mike Booth, in case you’ve forgotten, is Some Grey Bloke and Dan Cardamon – not the actor in Dan Cardamon but the author of him.)
One favorite, from part 9:
… Read the restThe inflection Thunderf00t is using at this point is known in acting circles as “Can you dial the condescension back a bit because nobody talks like that?”
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Rory Fenton has a very apropos article at the Rationalist Association calling for non-religious students to resist the tide of religious privilege at universities.
What happens when you go to university? New stuff! New ideas, new people, new categories of ideas, new all sorts.
… Read the restIn the midst of this, many find themselves doubting or losing their religious beliefs. For them and for those who have never been religious, non-religious societies on campus, whether called “atheist”, “humanist”, “secular”, “freethinking”, “rationalist” or “ex-Muslim” (and non-religious groups can rival the gay rights movement for the sheer number of inclusive terms they use), can be a second home. At their best they are oases of free debate and discussion, challenging their members as well
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Remember Reading University Student Union and its affiliated group Reading University Atheist, Humanist, and Secularist Society? The group that had a pineapple named Mohammed on its table at last year’s Freshers’ Fayre and got kicked out of the fayre by the Student Union as a result? I wrote about it almost exactly a year ago, quoting their statement via the NSS:
… Read the restAmong the material displayed on our stall was a pineapple. We labelled this pineapple “Mohammed”, to encourage discussion about blasphemy, religion, and liberty, as well as to celebrate the fact that we live in a country in which free speech is protected, and where it is lawful to call a pineapple by whatever name one chooses.
Towards the
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This joke comes from 25 Jokes Only Book Nerds Will Understand, which headlines this week’s THE LIST LIST, our weekly round-up of the best bookish lists on the internet. Check out the rest here: http://wp.me/p1TMUr-eJB
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Friends of Ralph Miliband’s say the Daily Mail’s version of him is grotesque.
… Read the restTariq Ali, a long-time friend of Ralph Miliband, who worked and campaigned alongside the academic from the 1970s until his death, has described the Daily Mail article attacking him as “utterly grotesque”.
Ali said: “It is a wild assault both on Ralph and his son, and the aim, of course, is to try and discredit the family as a whole, which is what one expects from a newspaper like this … completely crazed stuff.
“Ralph’s position was, of course, much, much, better than the Daily Mail, which was a pro-fascist paper until the war broke out – so to get lessons from the Daily Mail
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7% of pupils will receive instruction on secular belief systems starting next year. The other 93% of students go to schools run by the Catholic church.… Read the rest
In better news – the countries which I think of as Scandinavia plus Finland but which are properly called Nordic (I learned via this story) want to get rid of infant circumcision.
Yesterday, during a meeting in Oslo, Nordic ombudsmen for children, Nordic paediatricians, and paediatric surgeons agreed a resolution urging their national governments to work for a ban on non-therapeutic circumcision of underage boys.
The children’s ombudsmen from the five Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland), along with the Chair of the Danish Children’s Council and the Children’s spokesperson for Greenland, passed a resolution to: “Let boys decide for themselves whether they want to be circumcised.”
Note that it’s just a resolution and that they’re not … Read the rest
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Ed Milliband talks to the BBC about the Daily Mail’s ugly insistence that Ralph Milliband hated Britain.
… Read the restLater, in an interview with reporters, Mr Miliband said it was “perfectly legitimate” for newspapers to discuss his father’s politics.
But he said: “I was appalled when I read the Daily Mail on Saturday and I saw them say he hated Britain. It’s a lie.
“I’m even more appalled that they repeated that lie today and they’ve gone further and described my father’s legacy as evil. Evil is a word reserved for particular cases and I wasn’t willing to let that stand.”
He added that there were “boundaries” that newspapers should adhere to.
“It’s not about regulation… but it is about me saying
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Everyone in the UK is up in arms over the Daily Mail and Ed Miliband. The Mail published a horrible article about Ralph Miliband, father of Ed and David (a former Labour MP). Ed M and many other people said it was horrible, the Mail refused to apologize.
… Read the restThe Daily Mail is under fire after it refused to apologise to Ed Miliband over an article that labelled his late father “the man who hated Britain”.
The paper prompted an angry stream of reaction on Tuesday morning when it stood by the profile published on Saturday, which said the beliefs of Ralph Miliband “should disturb everyone who loves this country”.
The Mail agreed to print a right of reply
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I knew that was a very rainy Saturday and a rainy windy stormy weekend but I didn’t know quite how rainy windy stormy it was. It broke records.
1.71 inches of rain Saturday, which is more than the normal amount for the whole month of September.
The center of the storm moved ashore the center of Vancouver Island (in British Columbia, Canada) early this morning* with a minimum pressure of 970 mb, deeper than any hurricane to form in the tropical Atlantic this hurricane season. On West Vancouver Island, a wind gust was clocked at 76 mph (122 km/h) Sunday night.
And there was even a tiny tornado 40 miles south of here.
*Yesterday… Read the rest
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Nick Cohen has no time for what aboutery, for “how can you from the West talk about that instead of talking about the West,” for righteous indifference. He wrote that piece last week about the way Qatar treats immigrant labor, and got some whataboutery in response.
… Read the restAfter publication, a couple of people contacted me to say that the Open Democracy website had published a ‘reasoned’ critique of my article.
Maybe I had got my facts wrong, I thought. I did not seem to be wide of the mark. The next day Robert Booth of the Guardian ran a tough and well-sourced piece on how Qatar’s World Cup building programme would cost 4000 lives by 2022. The International Trade
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New information: women shouldn’t drive because driving bends their ovaries and that makes their babies come out broken.
It’s a Saudi cleric who discovered this, via research he hasn’t mentioned yet.
“If a woman drives a car, not out of pure necessity, that could have negative physiological impacts as functional and physiological medical studies show that it automatically affects the ovaries and pushes the pelvis upwards,” Sheikh Lohaidan told the news website Sabq.org.
“That is why we find those who regularly drive have children with clinical problems of varying degrees.”
Sheikh Lohaidan is reported to be opposed to reform more generally and granting women more rights in the kingdom.
Maybe if Saudi women did yoga as well as driving, … Read the rest
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