So Templeton is still doing this.

Religion News Foundation has received a two-year $210,000 grant from the West Conshohocken, Pa.-based John Templeton Foundation to help inform the public about how science and religion intersect.

Hey, I can do that for nothing:

They don’t.

You’re welcome.

Stories will investigate the religious, spiritual, ethical and philosophical implications of today’s most talked about developments in science, such as artificial intelligence, robotics, genetic engineering, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and deep-space exploration.

Why not just investigate the ethical and philosophical implications and leave the empty buzzwords out of it? Ethical and philosophical issues are much better discussed and investigated in secular terms; religion adds nothing.

The Religion News Foundation will also produce four ReligionLink source guides to enhance journalistic coverage of complex issues surrounding science and religion on such topics as religion’s role in the search for extraterrestrial intelligent life, the religious and moral implications of artificial intelligence, neuroscience and religion, and animal faith.

Animal faith? Give me a break. Only humans are afflicted with that particular kind of stupidity.

The Washington Post finds more sleaze:

The United Arab Emirates arranged a secret meeting in January between Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a Russian close to President Vladi­mir Putin as part of an apparent effort to establish a back-channel line of communication between Moscow and President-elect Donald Trump, according to U.S., European and Arab officials.

The meeting took place around Jan. 11 — nine days before Trump’s inauguration — in the Seychelles islands in the Indian Ocean, officials said. Though the full agenda remains unclear, the UAE agreed to broker the meeting in part to explore whether Russia could be persuaded to curtail its relationship with Iran, including in Syria, a Trump administration objective that would be likely to require major concessions to Moscow on U.S. sanctions.

Though Prince had no formal role with the Trump campaign or transition team, he presented himself as an unofficial envoy for Trump to high-ranking Emiratis involved in setting up his meeting with the Putin confidant, according to the officials, who did not identify the Russian.

That’s…not how these things are done.

U.S. officials said the FBI has been scrutinizing the Seychelles meeting as part of a broader probe of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election and alleged contacts between associates of Putin and Trump. The FBI declined to comment.

The Seychelles encounter, which one official said spanned two days, adds to an expanding web of connections between Russia and Americans with ties to Trump — contacts that the White House has been reluctant to acknowledge or explain until they have been exposed by news organizations.

Spicey said he knows nothing about it. Not a thing. Do we believe him? No we do not.

Flynn and Kushner were joined by Bannon for a separate meeting with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who made an undisclosed visit to New York later in December, according to the U.S., European and Arab officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

In an unusual breach of protocol, the UAE did not notify the Obama administration in advance of the visit, though officials found out because Zayed’s name appeared on a flight manifest.

Officials said Zayed and his brother, the UAE’s national security adviser, coordinated the Seychelles meeting with Russian government officials with the goal of establishing an unofficial back channel between Trump and Putin.

And we totally trust both Trump and Putin, right? Right.

Trump and his enablers are still hyperventilating about claimed “surveillance” of Trump or his enablers or his sock drawer. Now they’ve been reduced to hailing Mike Cernovich as a source.

The most recent allegation appeared on Monday, when conservative writer and avid conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich published a Medium post alleging former National Security Adviser Susan Rice authorized the “unmasking” of Trump officials’ identities—meaning she may have improperly allowed the names of US citizens to be revealed in intelligence reports. That story was further amplified by a Bloomberg View report with the same charges. The story has since been roundly described as a thin, nothing-burger—a misleading distraction at best.

That didn’t stop Donald Trump Jr. on Tuesday, from taking to Twitter to praise Cernovich. He even claimed the story would have garnered him a Pulitzer, had it been published in a bygone era of journalism.

Congrats to @Cernovich for breaking the #SusanRice story. In a long gone time of unbiased journalism he'd win the Pulitzer, but not today!

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) April 4, 2017

Ah yes unbiased journalism – so well exemplified by Mike Cernovich.

Jesse Singal sums up:

As many people have pointed out, it’s strange, given Cernovich’s history, that such high-profile figures would want to be associated with him at all, let alone to praise him so publicly. There’s a short and solid rundown of some of his most inflammatory material here, but among other things, Cernovich has said that “date rape does not exist”; has presented all sorts of interesting theories about the potency of some men’s semen; has spread made-up rumors about Hillary Clinton’s health; and once claimed that “There is no oppression” of Syrian refugees, and that “The media lied” about their plight — based on the fact that he saw a group of them playing soccer in Budapest.

We live in strange times.

Today in Syria:

The deadliest chemical weapons attack in years in Syria killed dozens of people in northern Idlib province on Tuesday morning, including children, and sickened scores more, according to medics, rescuers and witnesses in the rebel-held province, who said the gas had been delivered by a government airstrike.

A few hours later, according to several witnesses, another airstrike hit one of the clinics treating victims, who had been farmed out to smaller hospitals and maternity wards because the area’s largest hospital had been severely damaged by an airstrike two days earlier.

That’s a favorite trick of terrorist groups – set off bomb 1 and then when rescuers gather to help the injured, set off bomb 2.

It was one of the worst atrocities attributed to the Syrian government since President Trump took office. Only on Friday, administration officials stressed that ousting Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, was no longer a priority, and that Washington’s main goal was to fight the Islamic State.

Well, you know. Putin. Russia. The ties of friendship.

Sean Spicer, the White House spokesman, further told reporters that “these heinous actions by the Bashar al-Assad regime are a consequence of the last administration’s weakness and irresolution.”

Mr. Spicer declined to respond to questions about Mr. Trump’s declaration that his administration’s policy in Syria is not regime change.

“He is not here to telegraph what we are going to do, but rest assured he has been speaking with his national security team this morning,” Mr. Spicer said, adding later: “The statement speaks for itself.”

He is not here to telegraph what we are going to do? Is that right? It sounds pretty autocratic, to me. It sounds as if he thinks he’s entirely unaccountable…like a dictator.

Numerous photographs and graphic videos posted online by activists and residents showed children and older adults gasping and struggling to breathe, or lying motionless in the mud as rescue workers ripped off victims’ clothes and hosed them down. The bodies of least 10 children lay lined up on the ground or under a quilt.

…

While chlorine gas attacks have become almost routine in northern Syria, this one was different, medical workers and witnesses said. Chlorine attacks usually kill just a few people, often those trapped in an enclosed space, and the gas dissipates quickly.

This time, people collapsed outdoors, and in much larger numbers. The symptoms were also different: They included the pinpoint pupils of victims that characterize nerve agents and other banned toxins. One doctor posted a video of a patient’s eye, showing the pupil reduced to a dot. Several people were sickened simply by coming into contact with the victims.

A rebel fighter in the area rushed to the scene on his motorcycle to help. As he approached his eyes started burning and he felt suffocated, then he passed out.

He said he woke up an hour later at a clinic, after receiving injections and oxygen. “Kids were all over the floor, some dead and others struggling to breathe,” he said. “The noise of them trying to breath was loud, with foam all over their faces.”

That’s today in Syria.

Protesters in Australia raised the ante enough that Ayaan Hirsi Ali decided not to risk it. The Guardian joins the fun by phrasing its reporting in such a way that it bullies her too.

The controversial speaker and vocal critic of Islam Ayaan Hirsi Ali has blamed the last-minute cancellation of her speaking tour of Australia and New Zealand on “a succession of organisational lapses” by the event organiser.

What a calculatedly obnoxious way to put it. People made such a fuss about her speaking that she decided not to go, and that’s what they should have led with.

The 47-year-old Somali-born activist, author and former politician has previously received death threats for her strident criticism of Islam.

It’s not strident. The Guardian shouldn’t be joining in the bullying of her by calling it that. People should be allowed to criticise Islam.

Hana Assafiri, a Melbourne Muslim activist who had campaigned against Hirsi Ali’s appearance, told Guardian Australia Hirsi Ai was being held accountable for her “divisive discourse”.

“What I think is this is an opportunity for her to rethink her position … which peddles hate towards people.

“To me this is one of the hallmarks of democracy: where people have a right of reply.”

Reply, yes, but reply isn’t all there was.

Protests had been organised outside the venues at which Hirsi Ali was due to speak to coincide with her appearances.

Last month the Think Inc spokeswoman said one protester had been contacting insurance companies in an attempt to get the company’s insurance cancelled. Think Inc had been working with Australian Federal Police and state police to ensure the security of the events.

That’s not just “reply,” is it.

So yes there’s a new lawsuit against Roger Ailes.

A lawsuit filed on Monday morning by a paid political commentator for the Fox News Channel alleges the network’s past chairman, Roger Ailes, made unwanted sexual advances while leading her to believe that a big promotion would follow.

The suit says Ailes encouraged Fox News contributor Julie Roginsky to date older, married men, repeatedly praised her looks and sought to get her to join him for drinks, even in his office, away from prying eyes that could get them “into so much trouble.”

Roginsky spurned the advances, according to the lawsuit, and as a result never received the promotion to become host of the popular early evening program The Five.

Roginsky’s depiction of life at Fox News even after Ailes’ ouster last summer at the height of a sexual harassment scandal suggests a far cry from the changed corporate culture promised by the Murdoch family, which controls 21st Century Fox.

Really? But they seemed so nice.

Roginsky’s suit adds to the list of sexual harassment allegations against Ailes, which also includes those made by former Fox News journalists Megyn Kelly and Laurie Dhue. Through his lawyers, Ailes has denied all the previous allegations to date.

Perhaps more troublingly for Fox News and its corporate parent, 21st Century Fox, Roginsky also accuses the network’s current president, Bill Shine; its longtime top lawyer, Dianne Brandi; and other senior executives of complicity in Ailes’ harassment and of punishing her for raising the issue.

It’s Fox News. You don’t expect them to treat women like people do you.

Roginsky’s allegations arrive as new attention is being given to similar accusations against Fox News’ brightest star, Bill O’Reilly. The right-of-center opinion host and Fox News have made payments totaling roughly $13 million over a dozen years to settle complaints that he harassed female former co-workers, according to The New York Times.

Suspended Fox News host Andrea Tantaros has also filed suit, citing what she says was sexual harassment by Ailes and O’Reilly. She alleges that Shine also failed to take her complaints seriously. All three men deny her claims.

Though some of O’Reilly’s offending remarks were captured on tape, he has repeatedly insisted he is a target for wrongful accusations because of his wealth and success. O’Reilly has said he only settles complaints to ensure his children do not have to endure public scorn.

Even though some of his remarks were captured on tape.

The enduring presence of O’Reilly on Fox’s prized 8 p.m. ET slot, despite that history, has led some critics to dismiss the commitment of Shine and Brandi to combating sexual harassment and even to question why they retain their posts.

Bros before hos, man.

This looks like a good event, should you be in or near Bristol (the UK one) on April 20.

The afternoon panels:

2.00 – 3.15 – Knowledge base: understanding and perceptions – chair Finn Mackay

Professor Jackie Jones – professor of feminist legal studies, UWE, specialising in women’s rights, international human rights, human trafficking and violence against women

Geetanjali Gangoli of Bristol University Gender and Violence research group

Sarah Ditum, local freelance journalist on the importance on how the media shapes perceptions of sexual violence and the role of the state

Jacci Parry BBC documentary film maker on responsible broadcasting of legal cases around violence against women and girls

3.15 – 4.30 From the frontline: identifying the challenges women face

Nimco Ali – co-founder of Daughters of Eve – campaigner and activist challenge Female Genital Mutilation and violence against women and girls.

Yasmin Rehman with Dr Hannana Siddiqui – will talk on their ground breaking long term activism around violence against women and BME groups particularly in relation to honour based violence and challenging fundamentalism.

I’d go if I were going to be in Bristol then.

Godalmighty, Trump’s real estate developer son-in-law has been sent to Iraq to perform diplomacy. Seriously? Why? He has no relevant experience or training or education, he’s just a child of money who makes money selling real estate. What is he doing in Iraq??

Kushner, 36, who is married to the president’s elder daughter, Ivanka Trump, acted as a de facto campaign manager during much of the 2016 presidential race, and has consolidated even more power since entering the White House.

Kushner also has taken on some international outreach for the White House, and his portfolio includes China, Mexico, Canada and the Middle East. The president, in fact, has specifically tasked Kushner, an Orthodox Jew, with brokering peace in the region.

Despite his complete lack of relevant experience or training or education. Trump might as well send his pets, except that he doesn’t have any.

That’s not how any of this should work.

A disconcerting first paragraph:

The Environmental Protection Agency has issued a new, more detailed plan for laying off 25 percent of its employees and scrapping 56 programs including pesticide safety, water runoff control, and environmental cooperation with Mexico and Canada under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Oh splendid, they’re cutting back on pesticide safety. You can see where Trump would approve of that: much of the danger of pesticides is to farm workers who pick crops, and most of those are what Trump calls “bad hombres,” in other words immigrants from Mexico and points south.

In a recent interview, Sen. James M. Inhofe said he would like the department to focus on more traditional environmental concerns rather than addressing climate change.

“What I want them to do is to do what they are supposed to be doing – be concerned about the environment, the water, the air,” he said.    “I’d like to see an EPA there to actually serve people and make life better for them.”

Because climate change is just some airy-fairy idea that won’t do anything to make people’s lives worse? Really? Rising sea levels, disappearing glaciers, drying up rivers, crop failures, floods, more and worse storms and hurricanes and typhoons?

Oh well, Inhofe won’t be around for that.

NL Times reports:

Police took four teenaged boys into custody late Sunday in connection with the assault of two gay men in Arnhem. The victims were holding hands walking home from a party early Sunday morning when they were confronted by a group of young men shouting slurs at them.

They were then struck by a man wielding a heavy set of bolt cutters, kocking out four of Ronnie Sewratan-Vernes’ teeth and severing his lip, and injuring the ribs of Jasper Vernes-Sewratan. The two say they usually conceal their relationship in public, but were holding hands after a fun night out.

The journalist Barbara Barend sent a tweet calling on men in the Netherlands to hold hands in public, to show support.

D66 leader Alexander Pechtold and party member Wouter Koolmees arrived hand in hand at the negotiations on the formation of a new Dutch government on Monday.

Less hate, more solidarity.

H/t Stewart

Only in America.

A 20-year-old Connecticut college student whose father was killed in the Sept. 11 attacks has died after choking during a pancake-eating contest.

Police say Caitlin Nelson died at a New York City hospital on Sunday, three days after participating in the contest at Sacred Heart University. She was from Clark, New Jersey, and was majoring in social work at the Catholic school in Fairfield.

Officials say the contest was part of a fraternities and sororities event.

Can we stop doing this now? Can we just shut that whole thing down and never open it again?

Eating contests – in a world where famine and food insecurity and chronic malnutrition still afflict billions of people, what could be more disgusting?

Eating isn’t a skill, so contests in it are stupid to begin with. Overeating is not just not a skill, it’s unhealthy; at the extreme it just ends with vomiting. One of the impediments to “winning” an eating “contest” is the urge to vomit.

Also nobody wants to be in the news for dying in a pancake-eating contest. Nobody.

Via Heroic Women to Inspire Game Designers via Wikipedia: Elizabeth Freeman.

Elizabeth (“Mum Bett”) Freeman was a slave in Massachusetts before US independence. She protected another slave whom her mistress was about to hit with a red-hot shovel, receiving a deep wound on her arm and another on her face. She left the arm wound visible as evidence of her mistreatment. After independence, she heard (she was illiterate) the new Massachusetts state constitution, which stated that all men are born free and equal. Consulting an Abolitionist lawyer, she sued for her freedom under the constitution, and won. Her suit effectively ended slavery in Massachusetts.

The Elizabeth Freeman Center has more:

Born into slavery in 1742, she was given to the Ashley family of Sheffield, Massachusetts, in her early teens.  During her period of enslavement to them, she married and had a child, Betsy.  In 1780, Mrs. Ashley struck at Betsy with a heated shovel, but Bet shielded her daughter, receiving a deep wound in her arm in the process.  Bet left this wound uncovered as it healed, as evidence of her harsh treatment.

Soon after the Revolutionary War, Bet heard the Massachusetts Constitution read aloud in the Ashley’s home, and heard these words from Article 1:

“All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness.”

Bet recognized the potential legal and moral import of these words and sought out an attorney to sue for her freedom under the newly ratified state constitution.  With the help of Theodore Sedgwick, a Stockbridge attorney and abolitionist, she pled her case in the Court of Common Pleas in Great Barrington in August 1781.  When the jury ruled in Bet’s favor, she became the first African-American woman to be set free under the Massachusetts constitution.  Her case, Brom and Bett v. Ashley, served as precedent in the State Supreme Court case that brought an end to the practice of slavery in Massachusetts.

As a free woman, Bet took the name Elizabeth Freeman.  She worked as a governess in the Sedgwick household until the Sedgwick children were grown, and then she and Betsy bought and moved into their own house in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where she was widely recognized and in demand for her skills as a healer, midwife, and nurse.

She ought to be a household name.

I saw this cited as a useful source for explanation of “gender identity” and all that: Transgender Identity Formation. In it I read this claim:

Biological

We are just beginning to understand the various aspects of the biological components of who and what we are, and how they interact.

In an invited paper published in the December 2001 issue of Neuroendocrinology Letters, Dr. Gunter Dorner and his colleagues outlined two probable causes of transsexualism that fall into two general categories: 1) genetic enzyme mutations and 2) epigenetic effects which can include stressful prenatal situations and fetal exposure to endocrine disruptors i.e. the breakdown products of DDT (DDE which is estrogenic in nature).

Gender and sexual brain organization is dependent on estrogen and androgen hormone levels occurring during specific and critical developmental periods. “Sex centers” responsible for gonadotropin secretion are organized by estrogens, “mating cen­ters” controlling sexual orientation are organized by androgens and estrogens. “Gender role centers”, responsible for gender role behavior are orga­nized by androgens (Dörner et al., 1987).  The organization periods for sex-specific gonad­otropin secretion, sexual orientation, and gender role behavior are overlapping, but not identical. Therefore almost infinite variations of gender and sexual orientation are possible.

Did you catch it?

“Gender role centers”, responsible for gender role behavior are orga­nized by androgens.

What? People are claiming there are biological “gender role centers” now? Meaning, presumably, in the brain? So there are parts of the brain that deal with gender roles? So gender roles are part of the structure of the brain? Not “gender” itself, not “gender identity,” but gender roles? Golly, who knew? It’s actually a physical part of the brain that girls like dolls and boys like mud and women like to wear stilettos.

So feminism was all just a big mistake, then, like a political movement advocating the right of humans to fly like birds.

Caroline Criado-Perez does it again: Parliament Square will add to its eleven (11) statues of men one (1) statue of a woman.

Prime Minister Theresa May announced on Sunday that Millicent Garrett Fawcett, who campaigned for the right of women to vote, will be honored with a statue to stand in the company of giants like Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln and Nelson Mandela.

Mrs. Fawcett formed the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies in 1897 and died at age 82 in 1929, a year after all women in the United Kingdom were granted the right to vote.

It’s only the right to vote for half of all human beings. No biggy.

Fawcett, a political and union leader, is not the only woman to be honored by the British government this year. Jane Austen’s image will be on the new polymer £10 note, replacing that of Charles Darwin.

The Bank of England caused some controversy when it put Churchill on the new polymer £5 bill, replacing the social reformer Elizabeth Fry. The bank responded to the outcry by putting Austen on bills scheduled to be issued this fall.

Thanks to CCP.

In the United States, some have argued against the Treasury’s plan to move President Andrew Jackson, who owned slaves, to the back of the $20 bill and to place Harriet Tubman, a former slave who escaped to freedom and helped others do the same, on the front. But that plan is proceeding.

I think they should get Jackson off altogether. He owned slaves and he genocided Native Americans. Not a national hero.

Caroline Criado-Perez, who started a petition campaign for a suffrage statute in London, praised the choice of Mrs. Fawcett and thanked supporters.

Writing on Twitter, Ms. Criado-Perez said: “Delighted with such a decisive response” from Mrs. May. “Huge thank you to everyone who supported the campaign from the beginning,” including Mayor Sadiq Khan of London.

By the way, have you heard of Susan B. Anthony?