Gnu Atheism illustrates:

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

For a joyous interlude – check out the Handmade Parade today in Hebden Bridge in south Yorkshire. There’s a huge collection of photos here, and Maureen has given me permission to post a selection of hers.

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

Any time I want to make sure I’m not getting too optimistic about things, I pause to remember how shamingly far the US differs (always in the wrong direction) from all other developed countries on a whole slew of indices of national well-being or flourishing. Just off the top of my head, without taking to Google to find lists, there’s

• infant mortality
• maternal mortality
• lack of universal health insurance
• income inequality
• wealth inequality
• percentage of the population in prison
• executions
• violent crime
• guns
• debt

That’s a terrible list.

An item I wasn’t really aware of is the rate of juvenile incarceration. It’s off the fucking charts higher than any other developed country. How the scorching blood of shame rises to contemplate that fact.

There’s a new book on the subject by Nell Bernstein, Burning Down the House.

The American rate of juvenile incarceration is seven times that of Great Britain, and 18 times that of France. It costs, on average, $88,000 a year to keep a youth locked up — far more than the U.S. spends on a child’s education.

Think what an education a kid could get for 88k a year.

But the biggest problem with juvenile incarceration, author Nell Bernstein tells Fresh Air‘s Dave Davies, is that instead of helping troubled kids get their lives back on track, detention usually makes their problems worse, and sets them in the direction of more crime and self-destructive behavior.

“The greatest predictor of adult incarceration and adult criminality wasn’t gang involvement, wasn’t family issues, wasn’t delinquency itself,” Bernstein says. “The greatest predictor that a kid would grow up to be a criminal was being incarcerated in a juvenile facility.”

So we do a lot of it, more than other comparable countries. Brilliant. Just fucking brilliant.

A lot of them talked about being numb to fear, but some of that felt like leftover bravado to me, because the stories they told of what actually happened to them were so terrifying that I can’t believe that there wasn’t fear.

One young man described arriving at a new facility just as a fight broke out in the dormitory to which he had been assigned. And although he hadn’t been involved, his whole dorm was stripped to their boxers, handcuffed, chained together, taken to the gymnasium and forced to kneel there for what turned out to be two weeks. Is fear the right word for what you feel during an experience like that? I don’t know, because, again, he described his humanity draining out of him as he listened to the guards banter and tell jokes and just pass the time, as if these were something other than suffering human beings on the floor in front of them. …

It’s right up there with the Irish mother and baby homes and the industrial “schools” and the Magdalene laundries – only this is now, and it’s here in my country where I vote.

Shameful.

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

Catherine Corless isn’t happy about the way the discussion of the Tuam mother and baby home has gone. She doesn’t like the framing.

‘I never used that word ‘dumped’,” Catherine Corless, a local historian in Co Galway, tells The Irish Times. “I never said to anyone that 800 bodies were dumped in a septic tank. That did not come from me at any point. They are not my words.”

The story that emerged from her work was reported this week in dramatic headlines around the world.

“Tell us the truth about the children dumped in Galway’s mass graves” – The Guardian.

I used the word “dumped” too. That was the word that occurred to me. They weren’t “buried” as we commonly understand burial of the dead. The usual way of naming that is in fact “dumped” – it’s a deliberately emotive word that underlines the brutality. I think it’s the right word. It’s an indictment of the people – the church people – who ran that “home”.

The deaths of these 796 children are not in doubt. Their numbers are a stark reflection of a period in Ireland when infant mortality in general was very much higher than today, particularly in institutions, where infection spread rapidly. At times during those 36 years the Tuam home housed more than 200 children and 100 mothers, plus those who worked there, according to records Corless has found.

What has upset, confused and dismayed her in recent days is the speculative nature of much of the reporting around the story, particularly about what happened to the children after they died. “I never used that word ‘dumped’,” she says again, with distress. “I just wanted those children to be remembered and for their names to go up on a plaque. That was why I did this project, and now it has taken [on] a life of its own.”

She must be thinking that “dumped” will be upsetting to the surviving mothers of those babies and children. Maybe it will – or maybe it will make them feel that at last people care? I don’t know. I do know that my mind shrinks back in horror whenever I contemplate the scene back then when a baby or child died and was then…put or placed or tossed or dumped in a pit out back, with no marker or headstone or separate grave the mother might visit.

Corless has not been contacted by anyone from any State department, asking to have access to her research. Nor has her work been corroborated by anyone else. “I would definitely be willing to share my research,” she says.

In response to Corless’s story, Minister for Children Charlie Flanagan confirmed this week that there will be a Government inquiry into all mother-and-baby homes.

Corless has proved that 796 children died while at St Mary’s in Tuam – a shameful statistic that would not have been known without her years of dedicated work. It seems clear that at least some of these children lie in the small plot of land at the back of the Dublin Road housing estate. Excavation might be the only way to be sure. “Our intention in setting up this committee was not excavation,” she says, “but I would welcome the truth.”

The 796 deaths over 36 years is the real point, not the callous disposal of the bodies…except that the callous disposal of the bodies must have been an appalling twist of the knife for the mothers.

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

There was a protest outside a mother and baby home in Cork today, the Irish Times reports.

Mothers who lost babies at the former Bessborough mother and baby home in Cork tied teddy bears and toys to the gates of the building today as they stated their hope to be included in any form of inquiry the Government is now going to order.

The founder of the Bessborough Mother and Baby Support Group, Helen Murphy, who was born at the home and left when she was seven months old said the vigil was part of a larger campaign.

“We want the truth to be known. We want justice to be done and we want Bessborough to be included in any form of inquiry the Government is now going to order.

We founded the Bessborough Mother and Baby Support Group as an outlet for all those whose lives were affected by this place,” she said.

“The purpose of it is to remember the people who were there and especially the babies who died.

“But also to remember all of the mothers who gave birth there. We want to add our voice to the call for an inquiry into what went on at the mother and baby homes, how many babies died and where are those babies buried. We want answers.”

This isn’t the home in Tuam in Galway, notice; this is a different one. There are lots of them.

Women who gave birth at Bessborough were not allowed pain relief during labour or stitches after birth, and when they developed abscesses from breast-feeding they were denied penicillin.

One nun who ran the labour ward in the early 1950’s also forbid any “moaning or screaming” during childbirth. Girls in poverty, who could not afford to make donations to the Sacred Heart order, had to spend another three years after their babies were born cleaning and working on the lands around the home to ‘make amends’ for their pregnancy.

No pain relief. No stitches. No penicillin. No vocalization during childbirth. THREE YEARS of forced labor.

God damn the Catholic church.

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

What was that about the Catholic church in Ireland and its way with the babies of single mothers with no money? Starving them, neglecting them, throwing them in a pit when they died?

Oh yes, and also performing medical experiments on them.

Scientists secretly vaccinated more than 2,000 children in religious-run homes in suspected illegal drug trials, it emerged today.

Old medical records show that 2,051 children and babies in Irish care homes were given a one-shot diphtheria vaccine for international drugs giant Burroughs Wellcome between 1930 and 1936.

There is no evidence that consent was ever sought, nor any records of how many may have died or suffered debilitating side-effects as a result.

(more…)

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

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

Alternet says looky, there are other atheists besides those three that everybody keeps rolling out.

It’s surprising just how much media analysis, both mainstream and progressive, continues to take as given the notion that atheism can be defined and discussed solely by looking at the so-called “New Atheists” who emerged roughly between 2004 and 2007. It’s easy to understand the appeal: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens became prominent representatives of atheism because they were all erudite, entertaining and unafraid to say what they thought. A lot of people, myself included, were drawn to their works because they were forthright and articulated things we had kept locked away, or simply hadn’t found the words for.

Gotta stop you right there. Sam Harris is not erudite and he’s not entertaining. He’s badly over-rated, including by himself.

More and more, the strongest atheist voices are talking about nonbelief less as an end in itself, but as part of a larger conversation about social justice. It could hardly be any other way: atheism is growing not only in numbers, but in diversity. When Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens were at their most prominent, a frequent (and credible) criticism was that the faces of atheism were all white, male and affluent. To make the same claim now is to deliberately ignore some of the most vital atheist and skeptic voices that have emerged in the last 10 years.

Social justice! Horrors! There’s nothing worse than social justice infiltrating and contaminating atheism. Watch out! Watch out for the “social justice warriors” and “ragebloggers” and “well-meaning women” because they are Impure.

Greta Christina, the author of Coming Out Atheist describes the changes in organized atheism: “[T]he movement has become much more diverse — not just in the obvious ways of gender, race, and so on, but simply in terms of how many viewpoints are coming to the table. The sheer number of people who are seen in some way as leaders… has gone up significantly…. And the increasing diversity in gender, race, class, and so on are important. We have a long way to go in this regard, but we’re doing much, much better than we were. And that’s showing up in our leadership. It’s absurd to see Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris as representing all organized atheism — it always was a little absurd, but it’s seriously absurd now.”

Would somebody please tell the Secular Coalition for America that? I’ve tried, but they don’t listen.

Just as in any other group, there are scores of people in atheist and skeptic communities who don’t want to have discussions about racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and other bigotries, or say they’re irrelevant to the agenda at hand. The increase in diversity isn’t happening quietly or easily, and it’s often brought out the ugliest sides of people who base their entire identities on being rational and humane. Direct challenges to racism and sexism haven’t traditionally been the domain of the large organizations like American Atheists or the Secular Coalition for America. It’s been far more typical to fight incursions against separation of church and state or educate against pseudoscience like homeopathy.

Gotta stop you for another correction there. No, they don’t base their entire identities on being rational and humane – they base their entire identities on being rational, full stop. The humane part is what they want nothing to do with – they call it “ideology.”

But the more people step forward and identify themselves as nonbelievers, the more it’s become obvious that this narrow focus is unsustainable. Although the top positions in many organizations are still dominated by white men, an increasing number of the most passionate voices bringing new people into the movement are people of color, women, transgendered, or queer.

Jamila Bey, the communications director of the Secular Student Alliance, summed up the concerns of many in a recent interview: “There are people who say, ‘Why are we talking about racism? We would rather argue that Chupacabra are fake.’ And fine, that is their right. On the other hand, I don’t get to divorce my critical thinking from my blackness, from my femaleness, from my position as a mother. So when I see the only affordable child care in my community being offered at churches, that’s an issue for me that makes me say ‘Wait a minute, there’s a problem here. Why am I not being afforded the opportunity for my child not to be indoctrinated just so my kid has somewhere to play and meet other children?’ I can’t divorce my whole life from my skepticism and for anybody who says, well , talking about female issues or talking about issues that impact black people, oh, that’s taking away from skepticism, I go, well that’s really easy for you to say. This is my life. I can’t divorce the issues. You can choose to not care about them or whatever, but don’t tell me I’m diminishing skepticism because I’m talking about the reality of what my life is.”

Yeah.

If Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris brought a single essential insight to modern atheism, it was the idea that atheists could and should be unapologetic about their disbelief. For Heina Dadhaboy, who blogs on Skepchick, that was critical as she moved away from the traditional Islamic beliefs of her family.

“I think the fact that [Dawkins] was so unapologetic is why a lot of us became quite taken with his writings. It wasn’t so much what he was saying or how he was saying it, it was just the fact that he never apologized or capitulated for being an atheist.” That shamelessness helped Dadhaboy to assert her own voice as an atheist. Like most of mainstream culture, her family expected that if she was going to be an atheist, she would at least have the good sense to pay lip service to religion’s superior worldview.

“They expected me to capitulate,” she says. “They expected me to follow their rules and even if I didn’t believe in their religion, to agree with them that it’s more moral and makes more sense. Reading Dawkins was like, ‘Hey, I don’t need to do that.’”

I still like his work in that area – I’m still glad he did it. But…

Progress has not come easily, by any means. In some ways, it’s been outright nightmarish. The standard use of harassment and rape threats against women who make even relatively mild critiques of gender has put some of the ugliest, sickest parts of atheist communities on public display. It has even cost the movement voices; in 2012, blogger Jen McCreight proposed a new wave of secular activism called “Atheism Plus,” which would explicitly embrace social justice as part of its mission.

“It’s time for a wave that cares about how religion affects everyone and that applies skepticism to everything, including social issues like sexism, racism, politics, poverty, and crime,” she wrote. “We can criticize religion and irrational thinking just as unabashedly and just as publicly, but we need to stop exempting ourselves from that criticism.” The campaign of harassment and abuse that followed, combined with stresses in her personal life, eventually drove her to stop blogging and speaking at atheist events.

But Dawkins is still called Our Thought Leader, so that’s what counts.

When Elliot Rodger went on his shooting spree in Isla Vista, the harm was not to the immortal souls of the people he shot and killed. His bullets tore into their bodies and devastated the lives of people in the real world. It was not a crime against god, or the spirit world, or Allah, or karma, but against fellow human beings who were alive and breathing and may have lived for decades more if he hadn’t pulled the trigger.

But those gunshots didn’t kill just because of chemistry and physics; the bullets were driven just as much by Rodger’s poisonous misogyny as by a sudden expansion of gases in the barrel of the gun. We are social creatures, and racism, misogyny, classism, and other prejudices affect our lives in ways that are just as solid as the earth orbiting the sun or our immune systems’ response to a vaccine. The activists who insist that atheism address matters of social justice are not distracting the movement from its purpose or being divisive; they are insisting it deliver on the promises that attracted so many of us to it in the first place.

Damn right.

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

Taslima on ABC Radio Australia.

Also on ASIA REVIEW –  We meet Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen, who now lives in exile in Delhi. Over two decades after surviving a series of fatwas against her, the best-selling writer talks to us about misogyny in religions and the fight for women’s protection in South Asia.  

Taslima’s part starts at 20:36. Do listen – she has such a beautiful voice. I teared up at the part where she talks about being banished from Bengal, her home, but also having friends who love her and show her solidarity; she says those friends are her home.

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

David Futrelle takes a look at the evasive and/or deceptive ways of the Canadian Association for Equality and Justin “not Justin Trottier” Trottier.

Anyway, so this non-Men’s Rights group decided to hold a concert on Toronto Island celebrating “Equality Day,” a holiday they made up just for the occasion. They found a venue, got some sponsors and even managed to convince a bunch of bands to sign on.

Everything was ready to go until a few days before the concert was scheduled to happen, when some of the people who had been roped into the event discovered just what they had gotten themselves involved with.

…

The exodus from E-Day kicked off after a post appeared on the lefty Canadian news siteRabble.capointing out what CAFE was really about. Musicians and sponsors quickly distanced themselves from the event, and CAFE lost its venue as well.

CAFE’s response to all this? A press release stating:

CAFE received overwhelming support from musicians, sponsors and the general public for Equality Day. After several months of productive collaboration, the original venue Artscape Gibralter-Point cancelled the use of their location after receiving a small number of misinformed complaints.

That’s a rather … odd way to describe what happened. According to a good number of those who had originally signed on for the concert, it was CAFE that was actively spreading misinformation about their own event and hiding its Men’s Rights agenda.

There’s nothing like having a cause you can be proud of, is there.

A scaled down E-Day celebration of sorts did go ahead last weekend. It consisted of some CAFE volunteers standing on a corner handing out pamphlets and talking to passersby about their support of “boys, men and families.” (That’s a strangely limited notion of equality, huh?)

In their press release last week, CAFE announced that

Equality Day musical activities will be postponed to next Sunday, June 8. Details to be announced.

So far no details have been announced. But, hey, they’ve still got a couple of days to go.

On a totally unrelated note, I will be holding “E-Kwalitee Day” in my apartment sometime this afternoon. I am proud to announce that I have managed to book some outstanding musical acts for this extravaganza. They don’t know it yet, but I have written their names down in my appointment book.

Ah fantasy, what would life be without it.

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

It was a fun evening yesterday, the hangout with PZ and friends. The secret location was Olympic Sculpture Park, which was my brilliant idea – I’ve talked about it here before, because it’s one of Seattle’s better urban amenities and it’s in walking distance of where I live. It’s on a slope overlooking Elliot Bay and Puget Sound and the mountains. It was a perfect evening for it, breezy, bright, and with the late sunset of almost-solstice.

Deanna Lyons took some pictures of the killer sunset and she gave me permission to post some.

Deanna Joy Lyons

Deanna Joy Lyons

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

So here’s why I don’t get to talk to GSC people until Monday (or part of the reason, weekend conferences probably being another). Edwina Rogers has been fired from the SCA. Laurie Goodstein and Mark Oppenheimer report in the NY Times.

Atheists and nonbelievers from across the country will muster on Capitol Hill next week for a summit meeting organized by the Secular Coalition for America, a growing alliance of groups that has been giving the religious right an intensifying case of heartburn by lobbying for the separation of government and religion.

But what the Secular Coalition has not made public is that last week it fired its executive director, Edwina Rogers, an experienced Republican lobbyist whose conservative pedigree elevated the profile of the secular movement when she was hired just over two years ago.

Ms. Rogers said in an interview that she was given no warning and no reason for her termination, but suspects that she is being blamed for organization funds discovered to be missing and allegedly embezzled by two of her subordinates. An internal audit, obtained by The New York Times, found that two employees who handled the Secular Coalition’s finances embezzled $78,805, mostly by using the coalition’s credit cards to pay for restaurant meals, travel and plastic surgery. Ms. Rogers said she discovered the misuse of funds, reported it to the police, fired the two employees and commissioned the audit with the approval of the board.

(more…)

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

I’m off to hang out with PZ and other friends in a couple of hours. Did I tell y’all about that? In case any of the Seattleites among you want to go? I forget. If not, get in touch with me fast to find out where. It’s secret so that we don’t get any of the assholes who live around here, and there are quite a few.

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

And then some people just don’t get it. Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Babulal Gaur, for instance, who explains that rape is a social crime, sometimes right, sometimes wrong.

Gaur, who is from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said on Thursday that the crime of rape can only be considered to have been committed if it is reported to police.

“This is a social crime which depends on men and women. Sometimes it’s right, sometimes it’s wrong,” said Gaur, the home minister responsible for law and order in BJP-run Madhya Pradesh.

When is it right? In wartime is it? During riots? When a genocidal mob is feeling really pissed off?

Although a rape is reported in India every 21 minutes on average, law enforcement failures mean that such crimes – a symptom of pervasive sexual and caste oppression – are often not reported or properly investigated, human rights groups say.

More sex crimes have come to light in recent days. A woman in a nearby district of Uttar Pradesh was gang-raped, forced to drink acid and strangled to death. Another was shot dead in northeast India while resisting attackers, media reports said.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said he was “especially appalled” by the rape and murder of the two girls.

“We say no to the dismissive, destructive attitude of, ‘Boys will be boys’,” he said in a statement this week that made clear his contempt for the language used by Mulayam Singh Yadav.

I have a much higher opinion of boys than Babulal Gaur does, I must say.

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

Via Taslima on Twitter – The Times of India reports

A lady conductor of an ST bus was kicked and thrashed till she fell unconscious after she reprimanded a 30-year-old man for trying to board the vehicle from the front, which is meant for exit.

The accused, a 30-year-old factory worker from Navi Mumbai, also beat up the driver and another woman conductor when they came to the victim’s rescue. The incident took place in Dombivli on Wednesday morning and the accused has been arrested.

The drama lasted nearly half an hour but, according to the victim, the commuters watched silently as she and the bus driver Vinayak Nayakwade (59) were being roughed up.

Singh, who tried to board the bus from Dombivli, was on his way to his home in Kalamboli, Navi Mumbai. When Nayakwade asked Singh to get in from the rear door, he began abusing him. On hearing the commotion, the conductor reportedly reprimanded Singh, leading to him turning on her. She was slapped and pushed before being kicked mercilessly. “He kept kicking me like a football,” said the 34-year-old woman.

When Nayakwade stopped the bus and rushed to her rescue, Singh got aggressive with him too. He then pulled the victim out of the bus by her legs, tore up her uniform shirt and beat her till she fell unconscious on the road. According to the victim, the beating lasted almost 30 minutes.

Everyday sexism.

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

I get to talk to someone else at the Global Secular Council on Monday. I don’t think there’s a whole lot of talk needed. I want them to

• apologize on Twitter for their rudeness to me on Twitter

•  unblock the people they’ve blocked for asking them questions about the GSC

•  answer questions about the GSC

That’s all. I don’t see it as needing hours of conversation. They can just do it.

They just can’t refuse to answer questions about their shiny new project. They’re not the Vatican, and they’re not the kind of organization that wants to model itself on the Vatican. They’re the kind of organization that prides itself on being transparent and accountable – that’s a secular value, as opposed to the theistic values of mystery and unquestionable authority. They advertise themselves, so that means they have to respond to questions about themselves. They want our support, so they have to explain themselves to us. It’s just part of the territory.

But…I’m not sure they actually have that kind of mindset. Check out another picture that they use at the top of another page:

Remind you of anything? it reminds me of the Last Supper.

We really really really don’t need any priestly imagery of Dawkins receiving the adulation of the multitudes decorating our new “Global” projects. We really really really don’t need to make a pope or monarch or hero out of Dawkins. Enough already.

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

There’s more from the incompetent unresponsive unrepresentative “Global” Secular Council. I hope this will be my last post on the subject (of this particular quarrel, not the Council overall), but who knows – they keep adding to their CV.

Item: they apologized fulsomely to Rebecca Watson yesterday.

In itself, of course, that’s good – an apology was owed. But they refuse to apologize to me, so offering an energetic apology to someone else for a small part of the very thing they should apologize to me for…looks pointed.

Item: they still refuse to apologize to me.

The refusal is now taking the form of pretending not to know how to do it, not to know what they did that’s apology worthy, not to know how apologies work, not to know that they are an organization and thus responsible for what branches of their organization do. They are demanding that I write the apology for them.

Here is how our correspondence on that subject went:

To me:

Would the following Tweet meet your current request:

We are sorry we called @OpheliaBenson “Ofie”.

If so, I will have staff implement promptly.

My reply:

“We apologize” would be better than “We are sorry.”

For the rest, it’s a grudging ungenerous minimum, but if you want to look grudging and ungenerous, go ahead.

To me:

What else would you like me to have the account say?

My reply this morning some 14 hours later:

This is ridiculous. That’s a ridiculous question. It’s not a matter of “the account” – it is your organization. The account isn’t a separate thing; it speaks for your organization, and your organization is accountable for what it says. You’re the press contact person. If you can’t figure out how to apologize for grotesque rudeness, you have a problem.

There has been no response. The press contact person is probably extra busy dealing with the departure of Edwina Rogers, but there it is – the press contact person is hopelessly bad at her job.

Compare

We sincerely apologize, @rebeccawatson! We did not look closely and had no idea that a photo of you had been abusively doctored. Horrible.

with

We are sorry we called @OpheliaBenson “Ofie”.

It’s pretty staggeringly rude, isn’t it. You can almost see the sullen defiant child, delivering the forced apology as rudely as it dares and longing to blow a huge raspberry instead. And the press contact officer thought it a good idea to offer me that.

Item: they blocked @VitaBrevi too.

She was asking them questions, so they blocked her.

A shiny new secular organization that’s a subset of a less shiny less new secular organization is blocking people who ask it questions on Twitter.

How, exactly, are we supposed to go about asking them questions? Do we have to petition them? Go through channels? Pay a bribe? Disable the guards? What?

I’m serious here. They seem to think they don’t have to answer questions, so much so that they can malign and taunt and silence people who ask them questions. That is a very peculiar and sinister position for a secular non-profit to stake out.

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

Maajid Nawaz on Newsnight arguing with an Islamist called Ibrahim Hewitt who would love it if Britain became a sharia state and who won’t condemn or reject the stoning of “adulterers.”

There’s a bit starting at 4:30 where Maajid tries to get Ibrahim Hewitt to answer the question – “If there’s due process, stoning to death is ok?” – but the latter dodges and feints and Jeremy Paxman helps him get away with it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JlUMY8l6bE

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

Good. The discoveries about the Tuam mortality figures are making a stink in Ireland. Good.

There is growing pressure on the Government to hold a full historical inquiry into the deaths of almost 800 children in a mother and baby home in Tuam, Co Galway between the 1920s and the 1960s.

There were numerous calls from TDs, Senators and councillors yesterday for a full inquiry following the disclosure that many infants and children who died in the home run by the Bon Secours order were buried in an unmarked plot.

Minister for Children Charlie Flanagan said yesterday that he was giving “active consideration to the best means of addressing the harrowing details emerging regarding the burial arrangements for children who died many years ago in mother and baby homes”.

Wait; focus, people. Throwing them out like garbage was bad, yes, but it wasn’t the worst thing. Letting them die was the worst thing. Not taking proper care of them was the worst thing. Taking money from the state to take care of them and not taking care of them was the worst thing.

Yesterday politicians from both Government and Opposition parties, including Galway East Minister of State Ciarán Cannon, called for an inquiry into the circumstances behind so many deaths in the home, as well as into the remains found in the unmarked plot.

There you go, that’s the one. It’s the so many deaths in the home, far more than the mass burial.

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

Huh. The Global Secular Council’s contact person told me in her first replies (before the ones where she refused to tweet an apology)

I have instructed the Social Media team for future to take less liberties in this regard, and to run similar challenges by me before “tweeting” in defensiveness, rather than diplomacy.

I guess her standard isn’t exactly what mine is.

Ophelia Benson @OpheliaBenson

@SecularCouncil Seriously? You’re calling me “Ofie” now?

Michael DeDora @mdedora

.@OpheliaBenson There is absolutely no excuse for this. I urge the @SecularCouncil to retract and apologize.

Bames Jillingham @FuperSuck

@mdedora@OpheliaBenson@SecularCouncil Why is everyone suddenly going crazy because Ofie has been called “Ofie” ?!?

Secular Council @SecularCouncil

@FuperSuck Thank you for your support.

So much for instructing the Social Media team for future to take less liberties in this regard. And as for tweeting an apology – !

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