Oh, god, another one. A girl of 16 in Morocco was raped, and the judge ruled that she had to marry her rapist, which was nice for the rapist because it allowed him to stay out of jail, but was a bucket of rancid liquid shit for the girl. The rapist, to show his gratitude to Amina Filali, beat her severely – so she ate rat poison and died.

The girl’s father said he “did not want to accept this marriage,” which some have said was pushed in order to protect the family’s honor. But “my wife, my family and the court of the city of Larache” wanted the union to proceed, as it did.

“The judge decided he must marry her, and I had no opportunity to refuse the judge’s decision,” the father said. “I wanted to send (the eventual husband) to prison, and have my daughter stay with me until she became (an adult).”

That seems like a better arrangement than tying her for life to the man who raped her, but then again, “the family’s honor.” How anybody can think it’s “honor” to force a girl of 16 to marry the man who raped her is beyond me.

“Through this law, the rape becomes legitimate,” said Fouzia Assouli, president of the Moroccan advocacy group the Federation of the Democratic League for Women’s Rights, of the fact that an alleged rapist can avoid jail if he marries his victim.

That fact has stirred anger and action in Morocco, including Saturday’s demonstration in Rabat, which is about 170 kilometers (105 miles) south of Larache.

Protesters held up pictures of Amina Filali, held up banners and chanted in Arabic, “Let’s … end the marriage of minors.”

Moroccan law defends “family morals, but does not take into account the right of women as a person,” Assouli told CNN.

Let’s change that. Everywhere in the world. Quickly, please.

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

Zinnia reports -

It was exactly three months ago that Richard Littlejohn published a piece in the Daily Mail viciously attacking Lucy Meadows, a primary school teacher in Britain. Littlejohn targeted Meadows because she’s transgender and had chosen to remain in her job as a teacher after beginning to present as a woman – this was the entire basis for his outrageous, unprovoked assault on her identity, her career, and her very life. It was vile and hateful in all the ways we’ve come to expect from a publication that, like much of the press these days, treats trans women as alternately ridiculous or a threat to society. It was quite literally intolerant of everything that Lucy Meadows was.

So it came as a surprise today that the Daily Mail has completely removed any mention of Meadows from Littlejohn’s column. What happened? Did they suffer a sudden attack of morality, three months later? No. Their decision was based on something much darker than conscience.

Lucy Meadows killed herself this week.

Read the rest of what she says.

I’m shivering a bit, myself. I’m so tired of human malevolence.

 Update: via Bernard Hurley:

A petition to the Daily Mail to fire Richard Littlejohn

A candlelight vigil for Lucy Meadows -

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

David Cameron threw an “Easter reception” (a whut?) at 10 Downing Street, at which he promised to support theocracy.

The Prime Minister promised Christians that the Government “cares about faith” despite clashes with religious groups over gay marriage and welfare cuts.

At an Easter reception in Downing Street, Mr Cameron pledged the Coalition is committed to Britain’s links with the Church of England.

“It does care about the institutions of faith and it does want to stand up and oppose aggressive secularisation that can sometimes happen in our society,” he said.

“Wherever we go, we stand up for the right of Christians to practise their faith.”

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

Eric has a reading post up, and it suggested some thoughts to me, which turned out to be thoughts I want to expand on a bit, so I took the bus back.

Typically, in my magpie way, I zoomed in on the meta part of what he said at the expense of the substantive part. Never mind. The substantive part is also interesting, but for the moment – it’s about reading and thinking and blogging.

Eric’s introductory meta:

As usual, I am trying to read two or three books at one time, and that means I have several different lines of thought running in my head all at the same time. Lately, this has been especially true, since I went through a flurry of book buying which will lead to bankruptcy if I don’t take myself in had. All this diverse reading doesn’t really help a lot with blogging, because I have a tendency to jump back and forth along the trains of thought that occupy my mind, and what comes out sometimes looks a bit more like a word salad then carefully thought through argument — and then, of course, it simply gets trashed.

I do that too, but I have a different take on it, which I started to say there.

I don’t altogether agree with you that reading several books at once doesn’t help with blogging – if only because I think blogging is an ideal medium for the scrappy, the incomplete, the in progress, the brief – for the process of thought itself. Maybe that’s just me. I’ve always liked diaries, letters, notebooks – all kinds of writing that’s pre-publication or entirely separate from publication.

But that’s actually not the only reason. Another is that I think reading several books in parallel is a good thing to do, because it’s a way to see connections that one otherwise wouldn’t. Blogging is a way to record this kind of seeing so that others may be able to see it too.

You know? For instance you’re reading something about neuroscience and morality, and you’re also re-reading a novel by George Eliot. There can be echoes and parallels that you wouldn’t see if you weren’t reading both at roughly the same time – i.e. one in the morning and the other in the evening. And any combination of that kind is going to be unique, and it’s not usually the kind of thing that finds its way into finished, polished, published writing, because it’s too scrappy and bitty and small. Blogs are perfect for the scrappy and bitty and small!

Or you can be reading about the gendered society (in The Gendered Society by Michael Kimmel) in parallel with a startlingly witty, acerbic novel republished in the 80s by Virago, The Pastor’s Wife by Elizabeth von Arnim. Honey, there are some echoes.

In The Pastor’s Wife for instance there’s a brisk, throwaway bit from the pov of the protagonist’s father the Bishop of Redchester.

For there was the constant irritation going on of the affairs of the diocese getting into a more hopeless disorder. All that time she was away guiltily gadding, and now all this time she was not away but unavailable until she should have utterly repented, his letters were piling themselves up into confused heaps, and his engagements were a wilderness in which he wandered alone in the dark. The chaplain and the typist did what they could, but they had not been with him so long as his daughter and were not possessed of the mechanical brainlessness that makes a woman so satisfactory as a secretary. His daughter, not having what might be called actual brains, was not troubled by thought. [p 97]

Cross-fertilization, you could call it. Eric calls it word salad – but hey, from cross-fertilized word salad you eventually get enriched thinking, and the process is interesting to watch. That’s my view anyway.

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

Aw. I got a present. A surprise present. It came in the mail.

Cupcakes! Fancy gourmet cupcakes from a fancy gourmet cupcake place.

As a surprise!

In the mail!

Unexpectedly!

Who sent me a present as a suprise in the mail unexpectedly as a surprise?

“Everyone at Skepchick”

Are they the best or what?!

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

A thing you should do if you’re in London. (There are a lot of such things. Well it’s London. London hogs all the things, or not quite all but a lot of them. That’s good. I do turn pale with envy sometimes thought.) You can have drinks with Nahla Mahmoud. I know this via Maryam.

I just wanted to remind you of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain’s evening drinks with Nahla Mahmoud this Friday 22 March from 6:30-8:00pm.

Nahla Mahmoud is a Sudanese atheist, researcher and human rights activist. In January 2013, an interview on Channel 4 featuring her as an ex-Muslim and a secularist opposing Sharia law triggered a heated debate within the Sudanese diaspora. She received numerous threats and has been declared a ‘Murtada’ and ‘Kafira’ on the official website of
the ‘General Administration of the Sudanese Armed Forces’.

Come hear the wonderful Nahla speak. There will be ample opportunity to mingle and meet up with like-minded individuals and friends as well as other members and activists of the Council of Ex-Muslims. The
location of the event is as follows:

The George on the Strand, 213 Strand, London WC2R 1AP:
http://www.georgeinthestrand.com/

Entry is £3; £1 for unwaged, which can be paid at the door.

All are welcome.

You really should do that. I would love to do that. If I were in London I would go like a shot. If I had to walk all the way from Balham or Muswell Hill, I would.

That’s Friday evening taken care of, and then on Monday you have to go hear Leo Igwe. (See what I mean about London?)

Leo Igwe, Nigeria’s most prominent humanist, and a human rights activist, will be giving a very welcome talk on ‘Breaking the Taboo of Atheism in Black Communities’ during a short visit to London to attend the NSS Secularist of the Year event before returning to Africa to continue his research into witchcraft. Humanists and secularists ’of all hues’ are encouraged to show their interest and support for this area of work as black non-believers, in London and elsewhere, start to become more confident and active in openly challenging the over-bearing presence of religion within their families and communities and its negative social, financial and educational consequences.

This talk is part of increasing efforts to encourage black atheists, humanists and secularists to ‘come out from the woodwork’, to find a supportive environment when dealing with family and social reactions, to voice their opinions and be more proactive in the humanist, secularist and atheist movements. To paraphrase the African saying “It takes a village to raise a child. It takes all of us to change this religious BS”.

Mr. Igwe, in partnership with the JREF, is working to respond to harmful and growing superstitious beliefs throughout Africa, including belief in psuedoscientific “medicine,” and witchcraft, which result in heinous murders of adults and children alike. A recent poll showed that about 55% of people living in Africa still believe in witchcraft and that this is correlated, unsurprisingly, with a lack of science education. Inevitably, this has had ramifications in London with its substantial African diaspora communities.

Leo Igwe reports regularly on the state of superstition and paranormal belief in Africa at randi.org, with his column, Skeptical Africa and is the author of the new A Manifesto for a Skeptical Africa, a call to arms for African skeptics, science advocates, humanists and secularists. The manifesto aims to promote skepticism in Africa and to help save lives. The manifesto has been endorsed by a number of leading figures, including prominent names in science and skepticism throughout Africa and globally.

Date: Monday 25th March

Time: 6.30pm

Cost £5 / £3 unwaged/students

Venue: The Attic, Hackney Picture House,

270 Mare Street London E8 1HE

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

Fabulous. More religious interference with public health – religious leaders in Kenya squawked, so a public service tv ad promoting condom use has been withdrawn. Thank you baby Jesus and thank you Mo.

Christian and Muslim clerics said the advert encouraged infidelity, rather than safe sex to curb HIV/Aids.

In the government-sponsored advert, a woman in an extra-marital affair is advised to use condoms.

Dr Cherutich told the BBC the advert had been launched because up to 30% of married couples had other partners.

Never mind that. The important thing is to monitor other people’s sex lives and punish them for doing it wrong, not to prevent fatal transmissable diseases.

The Kenyan Anglican Church’s Bishop Julius Kalu said the advert, shown on free-to-air TV stations at peak audience times, had promoted extra-marital affairs and sex among school pupils, Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper reports.

“There are better ways of passing useful information to society. This one has certainly failed,” he is quoted as saying.

“It openly propagates immorality, especially when all family members are gathered before television sets, waiting to watch news,” Bishop Kalu said.

Wouldn’t that be a perfect time for the mature members of the family to give its preferred view of sexual morality?

Kenya’s Muslim religious body, the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya (CIPK), also condemned TV stations for showing the one-minute-long advert.

“The advertisement depicts this nation as Sodom and Gomorra and not one that values the institution of marriage and family,” Sheikh Mohammed Khalifa, CIPK’s organising secretary, told Kenya’s Business Daily newspaper.

But even people who have sex outside of marriage need to be safe. Start with that.

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

Phil PlaIt tells us that Voyager 1 has apparently left the solar system. Wo.

The spacecraft Voyager 1, launched on Sep. 5, 1977, has apparently left the solar system.

A new paper has just been released showing that Voyager 1 has definitely breached the edge of the Sun’s heliosphere, the huge region around the solar system dominated by the Sun’s solar wind. This is essentially confirmation of what had already been announced in December 2012, so this isn’t exactly new news, but given the paper has been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication, this makes it official.

Exciting. Plus I like the friendly shout-out to Surly Amy.

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

Michael DeDora gives us a report by Dr. Elizabeth O’Casey on the EU’s resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Freedom of Religion or Belief.

At the end of last week, the European Union (EU), supported by the South American group, tabled a resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Freedom of Religion or Belief. Now, whilst any resolution that highlights the importance of protecting every individual’s right to freedom of religion or belief is always extremely welcome, what is shamefully inadequate about this resolution is that it expressly excludes any concern regarding discrimination and violence against non-believers.

O’Casey and others tried to get more explicit language about protecting non-believers into the resolution, and the EU replied with the “almost flippant” statement that

non-believers are already covered in the resolution, by the ‘right to belief.’

Oh dear – not necessarily. You can’t trust everyone to treat non-belief as protected by the right to belief, because some people really do consider non-belief a negation of belief and thus not protected.

Or as O’Casey puts it,

what the EU representative and her colleagues have failed to understand is the importance, within the context of this type of resolution, of expressly underlining the institutionalised persecution and discrimination that non-believers are subjected to globally, as well as making explicit ‘non-believers’ as a category of persons who come under the protection of any right to freedom of religion or belief. The necessity to make this fact plain is demonstrated through the apparent ignorance of it by so many governments across the world; an ignorance manifested through, for example, the use of the death penalty as a potential punishment for atheism in seven countries, and the effective criminalisation of atheism in many more.

She’s being tactful. I doubt it’s ignorance; I think it’s more likely disinclination.

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

How lovely, in every sense. A guy bought a house opposite that of the Phelps family, and today he’s painting it Rainbow.

Aaron Jackson, one of the founders of Planting Peace, a multi-pronged charity that has in the past concentrated on rainforest conservation, opening orphanages and deworming programs, bought a house that sits directly across from the church’s compound six months ago. On Tuesday, March 19, he and a team of volunteers are painting it to match the gay pride flag.

The project — which the nonprofit is calling the “Equality House” — is the first in a new campaign Planting Peace plans to wage against the group. Westboro is known for its intimidating tactics of protesting (or threatening to protest) what they refer to as America’s pro-gay, anti-God agenda, in close proximity to pride parades, soldier funerals and other events like the Sandy Hook memorial services.

“I read a story about Josef Miles, a 10-year-old kid who counter-protested the Westboro Baptist Church by holding the sign that says ‘God Hates No One,’” Jackson told The Huffington Post.

See, if you’re going to harass people, that’s the way to do it – “harass” them with loving messages and rainbow houses.

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

Two teenage girls in Ohio have been arrested for threatening the Steubenville rape victim on Twitter and Facebook.

A girl who was raped by two high school football players is being victimized by threats against her on Twitter, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said Tuesday as he demanded an end to such postings.

Oh? He didn’t call her a professional victim or a drama queen? How odd. It’s just Twitter, after all. If she doesn’t like it, she shouldn’t have decided to be a public figure.

Two girls, 15 and 16, were accused of posting the tweets Sunday following the conviction and sentencing of two boys for raping the 16-year-old West Virginia girl after an alcohol-fueled party.

The older girl was charged with aggravated menacing for a tweet that threatened homicide and said “you ripped my family apart,” according to the attorney general’s office. The girl is a cousin of defendant Ma’Lik Richmond, attorney general spokesman Dan Tierney said.

I saw that one on Sunday. I was browsing the hashtag and I saw that, along with a lot of tweets saying they’d reported it to the cops and the feds. Ugly, ugly stuff.

A Twitter message from the younger girl threatened the accuser with bodily harm, leading to a menacing charge, DeWine’s office said. One of the messages was later reposted on Facebook.

Such threats have to end, DeWine said.

“People have the right to express their point of view, and they have the right to be stupid, and they have the right to be wrong, but they don’t have the right under Ohio law to threaten to kill someone,” he said.

This is not the first time the girl and her family have been threatened through social media, DeWine said.

“What’s sad particularly to me is that the victim has had to go through the rape, the aftermath of the rape, the trial, and she continues to be victimized on the social media,” he said.

And on blogs, by people like “Judgybitch” Janet Bloomfield. Ugly, ugly, ugly stuff.

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

Maureen sent me a selection of videos about Malala’s return to school.

She defies her enemies’ attempt to silence her.

Yes she does.

She wants to learn about politics and the law. She wants to learn how to bring change to this world.

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

But here’s a bit of good news for a change -

Malala is back in school.

She has now recovered following treatment at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

She described starting at the city’s Edgbaston High School for Girls as “the most important day” of her life.

She said: “I think it is the happiest moment that I’m going back to school, this is what I dreamed, that all children should be able to go to school because it is their basic right.

“I am so proud to wear the uniform because it proves I am a student and that I am living my life and learning.”

Malala is in year nine and will start her GCSE curriculum next year.

She said she was looking forward to learning about politics and law.

That is fantastic. Meanwhile the fund for Kainaat Riaz is at $2,290.

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

In the Nation, a sports writer talks about the connection between jock culture and rape culture.

As a sportswriter, there is one part of the Steubenville High School rape trial that has kept rattling in my brain long after the defendants were found guilty. It was a text message sent by one of the now-convicted rapists, team quarterback Trent Mays. Mays had texted a friend that he wasn’t worried about the possibility of rape charges because his football coach, local legend Reno Saccoccia, “took care of it.” In another text, Mays said of Coach Reno, “Like, he was joking about it so I’m not worried.”

In this exchange we see an aspect of the Steubenville case that should resonate in locker rooms and athletic departments across the country: the connective tissue between jock culture and rape culture. Rape culture is not just about rape. It’s about the acceptance of women as “things” to be used and disposed, which then creates a culture where sexual assault—particularly at social settings—is normalized.

Not by itself though. Jock culture is a branch of the larger guy culture, or dudebro culture, or macho culture, or whatever the right word for it is. The culture that just kind of forgets all about women most of the time; that wants to get away from women most of the time, on fishing boats or in lumber camps or lost in the wilderness, or at least watching reality shows about same; the culture that equates women to those profiles on mudflaps.

Jock culture is just a hypertrophied version of that larger culture.

In thinking about Steubenville, thinking about my own experiences playing sports, thinking about athletes I’ve interviewed and know, I believe that a locker room left to its own devices will drift toward becoming a breeding ground for rape culture. You don’t need a Coach Reno or a Bob Knight to make that happen. You just need good people to say or do nothing. As such, a coach or a player willing to stand up, risk ridicule and actually teach young men not to rape, can make all the difference in the world. We need interventionist, transformative coaches in men’s sports that talk openly about these issues.

It’s very striking that Dave Zirin takes it for granted that the coach will risk ridicule by doing that.

Striking and depressing.

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

How bad can it get? Well, I probably can’t even imagine, but I can see part of the way to how bad it can get. It can get as bad as Why don’t we have a Dumb Fucking Whore Registry? The author of that calls herself Judgybitch.

So two of the boys involved in the Steubenville “rape” case were found guilty and will now face imprisonment and a lifetime membership on the Registered List of Sex Offenders. That is a tragedy for the boys, for justice and for the victims of actual rape.  As we go through this case, ask yourself who benefits from this verdict, and why.

Most of the facts in this case seem relatively incontrovertible:  a young woman, who was not part of the regular social group, went to a football party, in a town mad for football, got trashed out of her mind, voluntarily accompanied two of the biggest football stars to another party, passed out and then got treated like a whore.

In a moment of mind-numbing stupidity, the boys opted to film their “assault” on the girl, which involved fingering her while she was passed out.  Rather than leave her in a ditch somewhere, they carried her around to different locations, none of which had any adult supervision.

What the fuck, Steubenville?  Where are all the goddamn grown-ups?

The law in Ohio states that ANY penetration, however slight, constitutes rape.  Let’s start there.  Comparing a stupid, drunk, helmet-chasing whore who gets fingered while passed out to an actual rape victim is completely and utterly absurd.

That’s the beginning. It gets less polite as it goes on.

The most telling thing about this whole case is that multiple people saw the little tramp passed out and carried about by a couple of douchey guys, and make no mistake, those boys behaved shamefully.  Part of having the adulation and admiration that comes along with being a small town football star is not to abuse that power when the little gold-digging status whores come a-calling, and those boys failed.

Punishment > Crime

That girl had no friends at the party, not one person had enough respect for her to step in, she was not part of the social tribe and there is no way in hell she did not know that.  She went to that party to nab herself a football player, and lo and behold, the football players didn’t really like such an obvious grasp at their glory.

Find yourself another wagon to hitch to, little star.

Hm. I can remember being in places where I wasn’t “part of the social tribe” when I was a teenager (and after, for that matter). Don’t we all? It happens. It’s not clear to me why not being part of the social tribe deserves such ferocious and humiliating punishment.

But the blogger assures us that the punishment wasn’t ferocious at all, and the girl will be fine.

Her life is not ruined in the slightest.  LittleTramp is free to go about her life, getting as drunk as she likes, chasing after any high-status males she likes, and securing criminal convictions against men who treat her like the whore she is.

I don’t think that last freedom is factually accurate, unless what the blogger means by “treat her like the whore she is” is sexually assault her while she’s passed out, and even then only if there’s enough evidence to convince a judge or jury.

You know what we need?  We need a Drunk Whore Registry. If sex offenders are registered for the protection of all women, then why not register drunk whores for the protection of all men?  It’s true that men could protect themselves by not acting like dicks, but combine small-town celebrity with lots of alcohol and no adult supervision, and you WILL get men acting like assholes and women acting like sluts.

When we only punish one side on that equation, we have a serious cultural problem.  Men are held to account for their irresponsible decisions made while young and stupid and drunk, but women are not? Most crimes acknowledge explicitly that mitigating circumstances create different categories of crime with correspondingly progressive punishments.  Why is rape different?

The punishment these boys face, which will be in effect for THE REST OF THEIR LIVES is way out of proportion to the “crime”.  The definition of rape in Ohio is so broadly defined that the act of being a dickhead is now as serious as the act of fucking a woman forcibly and against her will. And if you don’t think there is a material difference between getting fingered and getting fucked, you are probably a feminist.

That’s some of how bad it can get.

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

There’s a funny thing where obsessive people have Rosicrucian-like Ideas about what happened when once long ago a comment they made on my blog ended up on the cutting room floor. They think it’s because Dogmatism or Social Justice Warrior or Skepticism Stabbed in the Back or the Femistasi or The Lindbergh Baby. They obsess; they make wikis; they type and type and type and type; they go on for thousands of words. And all the time it’s much simpler than that.

The comment was fucking boring.

It was long, and detailed, and pedantic, and about a very small thing that couldn’t stand that much length and detail and pedantry, and it was fucking boring.

You know what? Not everybody writes well. It can be surprising how many people don’t write well and never realize it. I get some people like that commenting here. (Not you! Of course not you. But some people.) When people who can’t write well write long detailed pedantic comments about some tiny incident that can’t possibly merit that level of attention and verbiage…

then those comments are boring. Boring. Boring.

I hate boring. I don’t want boring here. I don’t want windbags here, boring everyone into stone.

But I don’t like just coming right out and telling people, that comment was boring and you go on much too long about much too little all the time.

So I just ditch the god damn boring comment and hope they take a hint.

But they don’t. Instead they develop a Key to All Mythologies on the subject, and they Casaubon it to death ever afterwards. But at least they don’t do it on my blog! They do it on other people’s blogs, and on their beautiful new wikis, and on fora, but they don’t do it on my blog.

And that, O Best Beloved, is how the leopard changed its spots.

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

Hotshot starry tv trainers who can make people lose 800 pounds in a week turn out to be peddling quack “weight-loss pills” that are both useless and harmful. How sleazy.

Both trainers have created standalone sites — jillianweightloss.com and bobharpersupplements.com — to sell their supplements. By taking this under-the-radar path with their diet pills, the trainers are using the fame and trust they’ve gained from their time on the Biggest Loser to market weight loss supplements to a consumer base eager for a quick fix that “really works.”

There is little proof that either pill “really works” at all. Michaels has faced four different lawsuits from consumers claiming her supplements either didn’t work or were dangerous. All four suits were dismissed, and it wasn’t clear whether the ingredients singled out in one lawsuit — Chinese rhubarb, Irish moss powder and uva-ursi — posed a major risk to consumers. But Lynn Willis, professor emeritus of pharmacology at Indiana University, says that Michaels’ Total Body Detox and Cleanse supplement is ineffective:

“This product is an absurdity,” says Willis. “It’s completely bogus that this would detoxify the gut. Someone takes a laxative and they lose two pounds of water weight, but it will come right back.”

Ah the old “detox” nonsense – the stuff you can get in Prince Charles’s overpriced boutique Duchy of Cornwall shoppppes. Also in Boots, also in the chain drugstore near where I live.

Adriane Fugh-Berman, associate professor at Georgetown University, agrees:

“Supplements like this are laxatives and diuretics, and they don’t have any place in a rational weight loss regimen because they can dehydrate people and leave them short of electrolytes,” [she] says. “And supplements have side effects.”

That doesn’t stop Michaels and Harper from continuing to claim their supplements are different from all the rest. Harper’s site boasts claims of two double-blind, placebo-controlled studies that confirm the effectiveness of his active ingredients, but one of the studies was funded by the makers of Harper’s pill, neither is named or linked to, and only one can be found online. According to an indepedent supplement review website there are several flaws in the study: the caloric intake of the participants was not monitored or restricted, which means there is no way to tell how many calories each participant in the study consumed on a daily basis; the study wasn’t performed on Bob Harper’s supplement, but on a different product; and four out of the five co-authors have ties to the company that makes the diet pill. Despite this, Harper claims on his page that he’s “tired of good people like you getting ripped off by scam diet programs and products that just don’t work,” and that his really does.

Blegh. Really sleazy. That old advertising bluff – all these other quacks cheat you and I’m tired of it, so here’s my totally authentic shit that I wouldn’t dream of selling you if it weren’t 100% totally 100%.

The Duke and the Dauphin are at it again.

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

Hot new idea in Egypt! Allowing citizens’ arrests.

Uh oh. It doesn’t take much slow careful pondering to see the risks in that idea.

Only Islamist political powers, represented by the Freedom and Justice Party and Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya, welcomed the decision as an attempt to curb the security deterioration in the country.

Really? You sure? Not as an attempt to curb the secularism and sluttiness and bareheaded woman-ness in the country? Not as an attempt to curb the blasphemy and Christianity and apostasy in the country?

Yes, Egypt is right off my bucket list. I’d be arrested before the captain turned off the seatbelt sign.

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

One of the pseudonymous harassers commenting at Michael Nugent’s blog is now just plain posting libel about me. It’s “Commander Tuvok”  – who will never have to face any consequences of his penchant for posting libel about people, because he is pseudonymous.

Meanwhile, we have Ophelia and her mob claiming terms such as “gender traitor”, “sister punisher” and “chill girl” were NOT taken up and used frequently by the Baboons and their followers. Just a pity the Pit has screencapped and documented dozens of examples of those terms being used with NO condemnation from the FfTB leadership. But this is typical of Ophelia and her insane sycophants – lying liars.

I claim no such thing. I said, truthfully, that I don’t call people “sister punisher” or “gender traitor.” I said what I do and don’t say. I don’t know which people “Commander Tuvok” means by “the Baboons” but in any case I said what I do and don’t say, not what other people do and don’t say.

And I am not a lying liar. And it is my real name and reputation attached to these smears, while “Commander Tuvok” keeps his own name and reputation clean by keeping them a secret.

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