I missed something in the text of that fundraiser to buy an expensive prezzy for Matt Taylor to console him for his “abuse” at the hands of the monster feminists.

Matt Taylor is a project scientist for Rosetta, the first human made object to have ever landed on a comet.

He is responsible for the giant leap. It is a glorious moment for human space exploration and future.

Instead of receiving the recognition he deserved, he received tremendous backlash due to the fact that he was wearing a T-Shirt depicting scantily clad women.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaait a second there. No “he” is not responsible for the giant leap. Of course he’s not! What an absurd claim. The whole team is responsible for … Read the rest

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It’s nice to see that Richard Dawkins still has some compassion for his fellow human beings, at least. After yesterday we might have thought he simply didn’t know what that might even be, but happily we would have been wrong. He has compassion. He has compassion for people he takes to have been abused by feminists.

Richard Dawkins retweeted
Pharaoh @bpaladin9 · 12 hours ago
@RichardDawkins Richard small token of appreciation is being made to Matt for his abuse. Please consider twting it. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/matt-taylor-rosetta-project-scientist

For his abuse.

Let’s take a look at that fundraiser.

Title: We want to buy a gift for Matt Taylor, project scientist for Rosetta

Details:

Matt Taylor is a project scientist for Rosetta,

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

No, that’s not what happened.

Richard Dawkins retweeted
SimpleHarmonics @HarmonicOz · 24 hours ago
@RichardDawkins @SamHarrisOrg @billmaher A man of science has been bullied to tears today by identity politics.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/11231320/Rosetta-mission-scientist-Dr-Matt-Taylor-cries-during-apology-over-offensive-shirt.html

Just for a start – it’s perfectly possible that Matt Taylor was upset with himself. I felt bad for him while watching and afterwards, and I still do, but not because he was “bullied” – I felt bad for him because he was upset. He could have been upset that he screwed up, and distracted from what should have been an unalloyed celebration.

And think about it in terms of the likelihood. Is it really likely that he was upset enough to get teary because feminists “bullied” him? … Read the rest

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Here’s one collection of all the clichés about The Shirt, written by Glenn Reynolds aka Instapundit. It could have been written by Christina Hoff Sommers or Richard Dawkins or Brendan O’Neill or any other hack Limbaugh-lite opinion-giver.

So how are things going for feminism? Well, last week they took one of the great achievements of human history — landing a probe from Earth on a comet hundreds of millions of miles away — and made it all about the clothes.

No we didn’t. Not “all about.” That’s just typical hack cliché hyperbole.

Yes, that’s right. After years of effort, the European Space Agency’s lander Philaelanded on a comet 300 million miles away. At first, people were excited. Then

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On the upside though, I’ve discovered an excellent Twitter account to follow, that of biologist Josh Witten, and four tweets that say a thing I keep having occasion to say, and say it beautifully.

Saying you “respect women’s toughness” as a justification for not considering how actions affect others as individuals is a cop out.

It’s a lazy & selfish excuse to do what you want when and where you want to. It’s the philosophy of a toddler.

Women are tough. That doesn’t mean we should structure society so they constantly have to be tough, on guard, to survive their day.

You show a high opinion of people by giving individuals the time & energy to consider how you

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So Richard Dawkins is calling astronomer Jennifer L Hoffman a pompous idiot then.

Jennifer L. Hoffman @astroprofhoff

.@weswt @missafayres Am I serious about being respected by colleagues in my professional environment? Uh, yes. #shirtstorm
9:00 PM – 12 Nov 2014

I wonder how many other colleagues and perhaps friends he’s calling pompous idiots.

I think I’ll collect some. Feel free to assist.

There’s Phil Plait:

I tweet about the sexist shirt worn by a scientist & get thoughtful replies. @roseveleth does the same and gets monumentally harassed.

There’s Sean Carroll:

Rosetta landing shows humans are awesome; Rosetta scientist shows individual humans have a long way to go. #shirtgate http://t.co/81UEUFi6x7
5:13 PM – 12 Nov 2014

There’s Jacques Rousseau… Read the rest

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Huh. I thought it was over. I thought it had ended well, and we were all going to move on. I thought it had ended well and without bitterness and recriminations. I thought Matt Taylor had said damn, that was a really bad move and I’m sorry, and we had all figuratively embraced him and gone back to rejoicing at the success of the Rosetta mission. (Not that we had stopped. I’m seeing people complaining of “radfems” fussing about a shirt instead of paying attention the the success of the Rosetta mission. Wrong. We were doing both. It’s nice not to have a shirt cluttering things up though.) I thought it was done and dusted.

I’m so naïve.

Richard Dawkins … Read the rest

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Philae is indeed going to sleep. No hop, no sun shining on the solar panels.

Philae Lander @Philae2014 ·1 hour ago
.@ESA_Rosetta I’m feeling a bit tired, did you get all my data? I might take a nap… #CometLanding

Thank you, @ESA_Rosetta! I did it! I became the first spacecraft to land on a comet & study it! But it’s not over yet… #CometLanding

My #lifeonacomet has just begun @ESA_Rosetta. I’ll tell you more about my new home, comet #67P soon… zzzzz #CometLanding

Now cut that out. Philae isn’t Bambi’s mother.

Have a nice nap Philae.

But before those three, there was this:

My controlroom after a more than 100% successful #CometLanding (watch the party in the background)

It’s exciting … Read the rest

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Ed Yong wrote a post in 2010 about a study of how objectification silences women.

Many people brush off the importance of men staring at women’s bodies.

Tamar Saguy is different. Leading a team of Israeli and US psychologists, she has shown that women become more silent if they think that men are focusing on their bodies. They showed that women who were asked to introduce themselves to an anonymous male partner spent far less time talking about themselves if they believed that their bodies were being checked out. Men had no such problem. Nor, for that matter, did women if they thought they were being inspected by another woman.

Saguy’s study is one of the first to provide

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More cheerfully – the lander also tweeted a graphic confirmation that it drilled into the comet.

… Read the rest

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Philae is losing energy fast. It sent us a graphic of its declining voltage.

Make it hop! Make it hop out of the shadow!

No Philae don’t goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo… Read the rest

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News not news: Brendan O’Neill “argues” dishonestly.

Case in point: he has a stupid rant about how the Grand Old Feminism of Yesteryear has reversed course and gone all wrong. You know what it is without looking – feminism used to be brave and tuff and liberatory, and now it’s all about being viccctimzzzzzzzz. The first few paragraphs could have come from Christina Hoff Sommers or Richard Dawkins or TIME magazine. Then he gets into particulars, and that’s where the dishonesty comes in.

From aspiring to freedom to conspiring with the authorities to harry and censor alleged deviants — how did feminism’s star fall so hard? For a glimpse into feminism’s stunning shift, look at what feminists in the

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Excellent – so Brazil is another place that won’t be giving Julien Blanc a visa. John Morales left a link to this ABC (Australia) article yesterday.

Brazil has said it will deny a visa application from an American “pick-up artist” who was forced out of Australia last week after a social media campaign against his methods of teaching men to seduce women.

No, not seduce – assault and (if successful) rape. Seduce means persuade. You don’t “seduce” people by grabbing them and shoving their heads onto your crotch.

In a statement, Brazil’s foreign affairs ministry said there were “enough elements” about Julien Blanc’s background to deny him a visa.

Blanc teaches men to seduce women using techniques that include choking

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

The Rosetta scientists are going to try to make it hop out of the shadow, but it sounds like a long shot.

Scientists controlling the Philae lander on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko are preparing to make a last ditch attempt to “hop” the robotic probe into a sunnier spot on the comet’s surface.

If they fail, the lander will go into hibernation. Without sufficient sunlight on its solar panels, its mission will be over.

The lander’s legs have a built-in spring action that can be commanded to fire. These commands will be uploaded tonight during an expected communications window that opens at around 21:00 GMT. There is no guarantee of success.

Yeah no kidding. Where’s the complaint desk we could go … Read the rest

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Surprising no one anywhere (maybe that can be  one of TIME’s “words” to be banned next year), TIME’s offering of “feminism” as a candidate for its annual “what word should be banned” poll provided inspiration for the kind of people who hate feminism. How could TIME possibly have foreseen that??! Other than by thinking about it for a quarter of a second, that is.

Yes, why does everyone have to talk about feminism? Why can’t we all just be feminists quietly? At home? Only very late at night when everybody’s sleeping? Or like in our teeny tiniest voices? Or in a soundproof hyperbaric chamber, maybe, where it won’t, like, bother anybody?

Ok, maybe that’s not quite fair, but making

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For your enjoyment and enlightenment: a hangout with a bunch of people involved in the Rosetta project. They are there to give updates on what’s happening.

One of the people is Matt Taylor, he of The Shirt. Starting at 15:20 (which is the first time he talks) he apologizes for wearing The Shirt. Good; thanks, ESA. Then he collects himself, and gets a pat on the shoulder from the guy next to him, and then he talks about the project.

Good. Done. Now we can talk about the project and leave The Shirt behind!

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xm6y0LzlLo… Read the rest

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A very interesting commentary on Jian Ghomeshi from a couple of weeks ago.

…graphic videos were presented to CBC executives — by Ghomeshi! — as a pre-emptive gambit, to save his job, an attempt to convince the stunned suits assembled that the women were willing participants and, look, bruising could occur even when the activity was consensual.

The women who’ve spoken out insist they never consented to this treatment.

Within a legal framework, consent is crucial. In practice, however, it turns into a judicial ledge from which an accused can jump into the “she-was-willing” safety net below. The standard of proof is simply too high, as victims have learned to their traumatizing dismay.

With plain assault, that doesn’t work – … Read the rest

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Reading up on the Rosetta mission.

Golly.

What makes the Rosetta mission so special?
Rosetta will be undertaking several ‘firsts’ in space exploration.

It will be the first mission to orbit and land on a comet. That makes Rosetta one of the most complex and ambitious missions ever undertaken. Scientists had to plan in advance, in the greatest possible detail, a ten year trip through the Solar System. Approaching, orbiting, and landing on a comet require delicate and spectacular manoeuvres. The comet, 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, is a relatively small object, about 4 kilometres in diameter, moving at a speed as great as 135,000 kilometres per hour.

And doing that very very very far away.

How did Rosetta reach comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, and

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A bit of sadism from the Italian Supreme Court. A couple in their 50s tried three times to adopt a child and failed, so they paid a woman in the Ukraine to have a baby for them.

Italy’s supreme court has ruled that a baby born to a surrogate mother in Ukraine cannot be kept by the Italian couple who paid for it and must be put up for adoption.

Under Italian law, the person who gives birth to a baby is legally its mother, and the use of surrogate mothers is outlawed.

I have my doubts about surrogacy, and maybe some about people in their 50s adopting, but yanking an existing baby away seems like a crap thing … Read the rest

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Originally a comment by themadtapper on Dissent of the day.

I don’t believe in an identity politics that seeks to remove structural oppression by forcing others to say things they may not want to say, or do things they may not want to do, or by ostracizing people for whatever-ism they are found guilty of.

Isn’t “ostracizing people for whatever-isms” precisely the remedy libertarians suggest in place of “forcing people to do things they may not want to do”? Don’t require restaurants to serve black people, just boycott them and let them know you won’t deal with racists! Don’t require Christians to serve gays, just boycott them and let them know you won’t deal with homophobes! Free market will … Read the rest

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