Some people just will not get the point. Take the Taliban, for instance – they are so confused.

Taliban leaders in Pakistan are blocking a polio vaccination campaign that was to target 161,000 children in North Waziristan.

The Taliban commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur is demanding that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) halt drone strikes, which have heavily targeted the mountainous region, according to a story in the New York Times. The move could prove a setback for the global initiative to eradicate polio…

Oh, no no no no, that’s all wrong. You’re supposed to impose suffering on yourself, not on 161,000 children! It’s so basic. You go on hunger strike, you don’t block polio vaccinations.

Hopelessly confused.

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

Russell Blackford, surprisingly, has announced that

We now know that Ophelia Benson did not receive threatening emails (she received a couple of earnest, concerned emails from people who were on her side … unless the emails were actually intended as parodies).

The way that’s worded, and in the context where it’s worded that way, it’s clear that that is an accusation of having, at least, exaggerated – and at most, lied. That of course is the view of the troll who keeps dropping in here under various names, but I expect reasonable people to take a slightly more nuanced approach.

I expect reasonable people at least to see that the messages I got are very peculiar, and that it is not obvious that they are not threats disguised as “earnest, concerned” advice. That’s because it is not obvious that they are not threats disguised as “earnest, concerned” advice. It’s really not. The “earnest, concerned” advice is itself exaggerated, wildly exaggerated; so exaggerated that it made me frown in puzzlement and try to figure out exactly what was going on – was this really advice? Was it mockery? Was it a warning?

In fact, it was so exaggerated that it triggered skepticism – which is exactly what Blackford is urging. That’s what led up to his announcement of what we now know:

Note, however, how Chris Mooney fell for the Tom Johnson/Wally Smith story because it confirmed his biases. This should be a lesson to us all. Be sceptical about every such story, even if it tends to confirm your biases. In fact, especially if it tends to confirm your biases.

I was skeptical. I couldn’t figure out what the hell the first message was. I didn’t just read it and think oh, great advice, I’ll do that – I’ll book myself into a different hotel while keeping the one I’m supposed to be in, and make JREF pay for both; I’ll demand a “Green Room”; I’ll agree with the writer of the message that I’m a big star and of course JREF won’t mind obeying my every command because I’m such a big star.

No, I didn’t do that. Instead I thought wtf? This is ridiculous. Green Room?? Escape taxi??!

So I replied, to express my skepticism and try gently to calm the guy down. I’ve already reproduced my reply to him, but I’ll just remind you of what I said -

I really don’t think things will be as bad as that. I’ll have some friends there. I think it could be extremely awkward at times, and I’m dreading that, but I don’t think I’ll be torn limb from limb or anything. PZ went to the GAC and we know there were people there who hate him, but nothing happened.

See? I was skeptical. All I was expecting was extreme awkwardness. That’s all.

But the guy replied, and what he said at the end shaded into what looked more like a veiled threat than ever.

I’m happy that PZ was not shot (gun or uppants camera) at GAC, but that gives me scant reassurance that you will *not* be shot either way in Las Vegas.

Please do not respond to this message. If you adopt safety measures, whether I’ve suggested them or not. DO NOT TELL ANYONE, including me.

As I said in Closing the file, I went back and forth, and I asked friends what they thought. I didn’t say omg it’s certainly absolutely a threat! I just felt creeped out and wary and doubtful. I asked people, they replied, I swayed back and forth – and then I got fucking sick of the whole damn thing – of DJ’s putting a metaphorical target on me in the first place, and failing to take it off once it was on, and (however inadvertently) creating a situation where I was dreading that extreme awkwardness, and now this – I just got totally sick of it.

I don’t think I was terribly unskeptical in calling those two paragraphs threats. They certainly felt threaty to me, thank you very much. It’s easy for Blackford to sneer; they weren’t addressed to him. I wasn’t certain that they were threats, but they certainly did feel threaty. There’s a difference.

So less of the triumphalist “We now know that Ophelia Benson did not receive threatening emails,” please. “We” now know that only because I reported what came next, which was Tim Farley’s generous help, including a tense phone conversation with the guy who sent the messages. I wasn’t trying to con anybody when I said I’d had threatening messages, and I wasn’t being credulous, either.

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

If you want to feel inspired and hopeful (and who doesn’t?!), read the messages of support for the Council of Ex-Muslims at Maryam’s place.

Congratulations on 5 years, Maryam and Anne Marie and all the exes.

xxxxxxxx

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

Oh look, it’s Jessica Ahlquist and Twitter all over again. A primary school principal in Brooklyn says no to a rebarbative-sounding song titled “God Bless the USA” for the kindergarten graduation.  Well I should think so! If you want god, go to church.

But of course she’s getting the foul name-calling and threatening on Twitter.

Hawkins scrapping of the patriotic song has resulted in nasty hate mail aimed at the principal that’s being investigated by the schools and N.Y.P.D.

One letter says, “You are a filthy, dirty, ugly subhuman gorilla,” another says, “Lets hope that AIDS will do what sickle cell anemia failed to do, exterminate your whole simian race.”

And there’s this one “Niggers and their Jew commie bosses are the scum of the earth.”

Nice. They’d be right at home at ERV. (They’re going nuts here these days, by the way. Hundreds of hits every day. Hi Justicar! Hi franc, hi gang. Sure you don’t want to call Greta Hawkins names on Twitter by way of a holiday?)

It’s good that religion makes people nicer.

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

Heh. PZ takes a look at a post by Benjamin Radford saying how awful blogs are.

So he makes up a statistic and doesn’t bother to cite anything, so blogging is all noise and doesn’t include references (hint, Mr Radford: it’s called a “link”, some of us use them heavily.) And nobody reads them, except a few of the bloggers’ friends. He could make a case for that, I suppose; I sure don’t read Radford’s attempts at blogging, and only ran across this one because DJ Grothe praised it on twitter. (Oh, I so want to see Radford’s critique of twitter — I’m sure it will be as perspicacious as his complaints about blogs.)

DJ praised it on Twitter, huh? Gee, I wonder why. Actually I saw that myself, and I didn’t really wonder why. It was kind of obvious. (What was and is much less obvious is why, in that case, he invited me to speak in the first place. If blogs suck, why invite me? Not for my tweets, I assume.)

PZ’s last line made me laugh.

(Also, I have to add: DJ, your proxies aren’t helping.)

Snort!

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

A tweet by Mary Beth Williams:

I’m going to start a feminist magazine called Holy Fuck We’re Really Still Arguing Over These Things Are You Shitting Me? Monthly

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

Alex Gabriel alerted me to a gem: an EU promotional video to get girls interested in science.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZtMmt5rC6g

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

The Southern Baptist Convention…

A day after electing their first African-American president, Southern Baptists on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed a resolution opposing the idea that gay rights are the same as civil rights.

The resolution adopted at the denomination’s annual meeting in New Orleans affirms Southern Baptists’ beliefs that marriage is “the exclusive union of one man and one woman” and that “all sexual behavior outside of marriage is sinful.”

Oh give it up, baps. Drop it along with the “Southern.” Just let it go, you’ll feel better.

It’s sex. Do you take sneezing to be sinful? Eating? Scratching?

Give up “sinful” while you’re at it. You’ll be amazed at how much better you get along. You’ll know better than to bully people on buses, and you won’t try to take people’s rights away.

“We deny that the effort to legalize ‘same-sex marriage’ qualifies as a civil rights issue since homosexuality does not qualify as a class meriting special protections, like race and gender,” the resolution says.

Because they say so. It was good enough for Moses, so it ought to be good enough for us.

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

Now this is bullying. A 68-year-old woman driving who’s a monitor on a school bus was taunted by four teenage boys.

ABC News says that despite the relentless taunting from the group of boys about her weight and physical condition obviously bothering her, 68-year-old Karen Klein will not leave position as a school bus monitor.

In the video, shot on a school bus in Greece, N.Y., four teens repeatedly call Klein fat, make fun of her hearing aid and, and one point, call her “dumb, poor and sweaty.”

I haven’t looked at the video and I’m not going to. I can’t stand that kind of thing – and I mean literally can’t stand; I’m going all scrunched inside just thinking about it. I’ve told you the story about that time I was on a bus…

…well I say “you” but it’s not the same “you” over time, so I’ll just tell it again. I was on a bus and a woman got off and then a teenage boy in the back got up and rushed to the door to call after her – and I felt faintly pleased, thinking he was going to tell her she’d forgotten her sweater or something helpful like that – to call after her, “Miss? Miss? Lay off the doughnuts!” Some other asshole laughed. It was well over ten years ago but it’s scorched into my memory.

That’s bullying. Humiliating people because they’re fat, ugly, old, brown, black, poor, sweaty, wearing a hearing aid, spotty, shabby, foreign – that is bullying.

You browse #bullies at Twitter and you see a lot about Karen Klein and a lot about school kids…and some guy ranting about “FTB.”

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

I’m as bored with the subject as you are now, but there were some questions outstanding and I can answer some of them now, so I’ll do that.

To put the conclusion first: I think the threats weren’t really threats. They were advice about my safety at TAM, but they were so over the top that they read more like veiled threats than like advice. But I now think they weren’t.

Jason checked out the headers for me on Tuesday, and found nothing sinister. Tim Farley, with my permission, investigated further yesterday and today. Tim did useful investigating of Dennis Markuze last year, so I was very glad to have his help. He phoned the guy who sent me the “advice” this morning, and what he told me was enough.

But I’ll show you the substance of the emails, so that you can see for yourselves. The sender told me to feel free to share anything from them when he first sent them. I’m not going to give any personal details about him.

The relevant part of the first one:

Please honor (and that word is chosen sincerely) your commitment to TAM by appearing there for your scheduled talk.

I share your concern that for you, things will not simply be as bad as they ever were for a female at any previous TAM, but may even//will likely be worse now that you are somehow associated with those who are said to “have it in for TAM.”

BUT, if you attend, Ophelia plan seriously, and seriously plan, for your own safety. That is, forget any philosophical nuances between “safe places,” “feeling safe,” and places that may be “unsafe.” Ophelia, please plan to actually BE safe wherever and whenever you are at TAM.

(a) Please plan to take a “secret” hotel room far away from the TAM venue, without giving up your assigned TAM room. Insist that JREF reimburse you for that room, and that JREF *not* know, during TAM, the whereabouts of that secret hotel room. In addition, take, for the week, a cell phone with a number hitherto unassociated with you.

(b) Please don’t show up at TAM one second before you must be on stage.

(c) Don’t stay at TAM one second after you have finished your talk and left the stage.

(d) INSIST that you have access to a secure “Green Room” immediately before your talk, and that you have access to that secure “Green Room immediately after your talk, while you await your escape taxi. (This is, Ophelia, nothing more than a star performer would expect, and you are certainly a star performer for JREF!) If JREF cannot accommodate you in this respect, then PLEASE decline, even at this last minute, to attend TAM. Then blog about it.

Ophelia: It is absolutely none of my business except to have one of my favorite bloggers continue blogging and one of my favorite callers of bullshit continue to call bullshit, but things have changed since you agreed back in the early spring to speak at TAM. You now know that you, and only you, will be responsible for your own safety at TAM and for your own sense of safety. You cannot count on JREF and/or on DJ Grothe and/or (unfortunately) on James Randi … to give you any comfort, or any reassurance, or any protection, or any hearing, fair or otherwise, or any redress (or even any address!) if anything untoward happens. Any of these (comfort…address) MAY be proferred, but you cannot count on any of them!

Ophelia, Schroedinger’s rapists are real and they inhabit spaces other than elevators. You, especially you, have no RATIONAL reason to feel safe anywhere at TAM or anywhere in TAM’s conventional hotel. In light of the past two or three weeks, you, of all persons, have every reason *not* to feel safe. Go into TAM space seldom, go there sparsely, and when you do go there, Ophelia, go with the utmost caution.

But go. If you get the minimalist security you need, the security I’ve adumbrated above, then go to TAM. Go because you promised to do so. Go because you can deal with assholes, because you can deal with misogyny, because you can deal with cluelessness. I know all of this is true because I’ve seen you do it over and over again, and I’ve seen you do it extraordinarily well.

Go, above all, because you have something to say — something important to say to the TAM audience — something that might wake up Randi — something that might finally get through to D.J. Grothe. But above all, go because you have something to say that almost certainly will both instruct and inspire those who have come to hear you.

I thought that was way over the top. Kind, in many ways (and I feel mean revealing it, but I think I kind of have to), but way way way over the top. I was dreading TAM because I did think it likely that I would get very overt in-my-face hostility, but that’s all.

I replied to that effect:

I really don’t think things will be as bad as that. I’ll have some friends there. I think it could be extremely awkward at times, and I’m dreading that, but I don’t think I’ll be torn limb from limb or anything. PZ went to the GAC and we know there were people there who hate him, but nothing happened.

The second message was the one that made me get nervous, and ask others what they thought.

Ophelia, it really, really, really may well be “as bad as” all that. This stuff has gotten nasty in the past several weeks, including a message today or yesterday about “we don’t want you (Ophelia) at TAM.” The past several weeks’ nastiness changes the equation IMHO, from when you agreed to be there.

Please consider, at least, staying at a non-conference hotel and going back and forth in taxis or limos.

I’m happy that PZ was not shot (gun or uppants camera) at GAC, but that gives me scant reassurance that you will *not* be shot either way in Las Vegas.

Please do not respond to this message. If you adopt safety measures, whether I’ve suggested them or not. DO NOT TELL ANYONE, including me.

The last two paragraphs, especially.

It just creeped me out. I went back and forth for a few hours, and then I decided I just couldn’t stand it any more. That’s all.

So that’s it. No, I’m not going to report it to the cops. No, I don’t think I over-reacted.

Meanwhile, I’ve had a much nicer invitation today (TBA), so my mood is improved beyond all recognition.

The end.

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

There’s a thing I don’t understand. Well there are a lot of those, but one in particular. I saw a re-run on Nova last night of a 2010 episode about telescopes and the universe. (As usual I was multitasking at the time, so I probably missed some technical information.)

They showed us one of the giant telescopes, this one in Arizona; the narrator said dramatically that they open the eight-story doors while we saw the doors opening. We saw lots of images via that telescope and the Hubble and others, while various people explained that they can see to the very edge of the universe.

That’s what I don’t understand. Eight stories tall, that’s all very well, but it doesn’t amount to much when stacked up next to the universe. Hundreds of billions of galaxies, you know, each with hundreds of billions of stars, all howevermany light years apart. Eight stories, one story, sixteen stories – what difference does it make?

I don’t understand how we can make a telescope that can see these distances. That’s all. I accept the brute fact, because I’m obedient that way, but I can’t get my head around it.

It’s fascinating though. Humans, eh?

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

Uganda continues on its terrible course.

Uganda plans to ban 38 non-governmental organisations it accuses of promoting homosexuality, the Minister for Ethics and Integrity Simon Lokodo has said.

…

The minister says the organisations are receiving foreign support for Uganda’s homosexuals and accused gay people of “recruiting” young children into homosexuality, Reuters reports.

On Monday, police raided a gay rights conference being held at a hotel just outside the capital, Kampala.

Gay activists from around the region were detained for a few hours.

Not recruiting. Not promoting. Demanding equal rights for. There’s a difference.

Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone in the world understood this?

Feminists don’t “recruit” anyone to be a woman. Feminists don’t “promote” being a woman. We just demand equal rights for women. Mutatis mutandis the same applies to other kinds of people where “kind” is not any kind of crime or harm. Criminals and people who do harm also get to have human rights, but the arguments and campaigns are somewhat different. But when it comes to what people just are, then the basic claim is the same: this particular status or identity or label is not a reason to deny people of that status or identity or label their rights.

It would be nice if everyone got that.

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

This one is on an oldish thread, and I wouldn’t want anyone to miss it, because it’s so…choice. It’s from someone indignant about my thoughts on the Vatican’s attitude to “radical feminist” nuns, so presumably from a devout Catholic, who presumably thinks that he is therefore A Good Person. [Compassion is at the heart of every great religion. - Karen Armstrong]

Here’s devout good Phil’s pious comment:

What a bitter and twisted immoral egotistical imbecile you are. No one wants your obedience, they would prefer your absence, permanently. No doubt you’ve found yourself a comfortable little billet where you can open your big mouth as wide as you like as often as you like with impunity. Bully for you. Lesbian narcissist. Go back to kissing your reflection.

Doncha just love the virtue of good Catholics like that?

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

A couple of good posts on how to not urinate on women.

Dana on How not to handle harassment.

Chris Clarke on Misogyny, the skeptics movement, and grand theft auto.

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

Once in awhile Twitter’s recommendations come in very handy – I didn’t know Sherry Rehman was on Twitter. I didn’t even know she was Pakistan’s ambassador to the US – last I knew she was one of two surviving politicians in Pakistan who favored reforming the blasphemy law, and thus in very serious danger. I’m profoundly glad that she’s now an ambassador and thus less likely to be murdered by one of her own employees the way Salman Tazeer was.

So in reading her Twitter feed I find Foreign Policy’s list of important women on Twitter. I wish it weren’t an afterthought to a list of just important people on Twitter that was nearly 90% men, and I wish it didn’t have a hot pink tweetybird on it, but it’s good to have a list. I’ll be Following some.

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

In a comment at Pharyngula responding to people saying things like

I find it sad that, for want of a better analogy, the terrorists seem to be winning… let’s not kid ourselves, this is a fight for our movement, and we have to be prepared to get your hands dirty if we don’t want this kind of dick head behavior to be associated with it.  Yet all I see is declarations of “oh, I’m not going, because poo-poo heads”… it should be more like “They what!?  Let’s take it to ‘em, troops”

Maureen said:

How dare you come here with so poor a grasp of what has been happening, such a complete blank in your brains?  How dare you suggest that we are failing to change the culture because we are too passive?  Some of us do have enough grasp of what is happening to know that sometimes in this fight the opposite of “passive” is “dead”  –  dead in a ditch like Emmett Till in an earlier struggle because he wasn’t quite passive enough, dead under the King’s horse at Epsom like Emily Davidson, dead like Brandy Martell just last month in Oakland CA but then you probably never heard of her.

Besides, guys, we are not on a martyrdom kick.  We are trying to persuade a bunch of entitled buffoons that the culture is changing, it is going to keep changing and, no, they can’t halt the change.  They can only drag it out a little, make it a little more messy.  To achieve that we have to be focussed and rational.  The delayers and disparagers can afford to be emotional and self-indulgent  –  as they have been of late.

What exactly is it that you want us to do?  All sell our houses and fly to Vegas so that we can wrap James Randi and his beard in Scotch tape?  Yes, that would be assault and you can be sure that by the time we finished the first roll every cop within 20 miles would be on hand to protect him.

People are getting away with behaviour on the ill-mannered to criminal scale because they are getting cover from both the arrogant and the dim.  They are getting encouragement.  They are being cheered on as they heap verbal abuse on those who have already been abused.  They are putting on stunts like the Great Penis Debate in the midst of all this and still claiming that it’s all a big joke.

There are two sets of people here  –  the ones who suggest that with some effort we could improve this, that or the other and the other set who say, “Naw, my grandpappy used to get away with groping all the women in his workplace and I want my share, too.”  Not difficult to see which set you lot jumped into bed with!

Now listen up, children.  I was 70 last week and I have been on to this since I was 12.  In my lifetime and in just one country I have seen changes to the teaching of maths and science, the professions opened to women, the banking system woken up so that it no longer demands a male countersignature, individual taxation for couples, women’s refuges and rape crisis centres, clarification of what rape is and stalking on the books as a criminal offence plus other changes to the law.  And so on and so forth.  And marched and wrote and spoke and supported comrades in the fight.

In the course of that I have met an amazing number of totally impressive people, people I have been so proud to know.  Not a few of them on this very blog where I come for the very clarity of thought, effective communication, depth of commitment and experience which has always proved to be far more effective than any amount of mealy-mouthed wanking.

We are not there yet and sometimes that get a bit frustrating.  Some of us, though, know exactly what we are aiming for and it is still eyes on the prize.

You don’t like that?  Tough!

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

I got email threats about TAM today, so I’m not going.

One less thing to worry about.

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

The popular Pakistani singer Ghazala Javed was shot to death in Peshawar yesterday along with her father.

Police official Imtiaz Khan said the ex-husband was suspected of involvement in the murders.

The singer had fled to Peshawar in 2009 to escape the then Taliban-dominated northwestern district of Swat as the army launched a sweeping offensive.

Ghazala Javed sung in her native Pashto language and released more than two dozen albums that were popular among Pashto speakers in the northwest.

She married businessman Jahangir Khan in 2010, but demanded a divorce after finding out he had another wife and because he tried to ban her from singing, the family said.

Not the Taliban, just a murderous possessive ex-husband.

Same thing.

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

The pope’s consigliere says it’s the devil who’s making things hot for them.

In a rare interview with the Italian Catholic magazine Famiglia Cristiana, Bertone, the Vatican’s secretary of state, accused the media of “intentionally ignoring” the good things the Church does while dwelling on scandals.

Yeah the good things! Like telling people condoms cause Aids! Like trying to stop people using any kind of birth control ever! Like trying to make hospitals promise never to save a woman’s life if it requires an abortion – never ever ever. Like excommunicating anyone who tries to ordain a woman. Like saying no no no no no no women can never be priests because they are women. Good things!

Bertone branded as false the image of the Vatican as a place of intrigue and power struggles, saying: “The truth is that there is an attempt to sow division that comes from the Devil”.

Nothing to do with any faults in the institution itself or its way of thinking about the world – such as claiming that problems are the work of the devil.

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