From Gnu Atheism on Facebook:

… Read the rest

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See update below.

Wow. Nick Cohen talked to Nicola Dandridge about this whole “it’s ok to gender segregate university debates at the behest of theocrats” idea for a piece in the Spectator.

Why not go further? Why not segregate all lectures at universities? Or as, I said to Dandridge, why not segregate by race?

Well she replied, Universities UK cannot recommend racial segregation because Parliament has banned it – wisely it now seems.

What about speakers insisting that homosexuals sit on one side of a hall and heterosexuals on another?

Dandridge appeared to find that notion genuinely discomforting. She did not want to see gays singled out, she said. Not in the least.

‘What’s your problem with women, then?’ I

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Aw now NPR is scolding people for not being skeptical of Elan Gale’s story. Aw now I feel bad.

This was reported as fact in all sorts of places, including the New York Daily News, as well as Buzzfeed, which opined that even with all the families gathering happily around their tables, even with the parades and football games, it was Elan Gale telling this woman in “mom jeans” to “eat [not turkey]” that “won Thanksgiving.”

And then, somebody claimed to be a member of her family and claimed she had cancer.

And then Gale disappeared from Twitter.

And then he came back and now seems, kind of, to be acknowledging that — as people had begun to expect

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Now I want to single out this one part of the ACLU press release for close attention.

Tamesha Means rushed to Mercy Health Partners in Muskegon, Michigan, when her water broke after only 18 weeks of pregnancy. Based on the bishops’ religious directives, the hospital sent her home twice even though Means was in excruciating pain; there was virtually no chance that her pregnancy could survive, and continuing the pregnancy posed significant risks to her health.

Because of its Catholic affiliation and binding directives, the hospital told Means that there was nothing it could do and did not tell Means that terminating her pregnancy was an option and the safest course for her condition. When Means returned to the hospital

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Elan Gale says haha it was just a joke. Or a story or a test or an experiment or a lie. It was untrue. It was a fiction, an invention, an imaginary incident.

elan gale @theyearofelan

Here is Diana sitting in a chair

pic.twitter.com/OE5q7j8dhr

The photo is of an empty chair. Geddit?

He tweets again to say he meant Diane. Then he wraps up:

elan gale @theyearofelan

I conclude by saying hopefully a few people got a few laughs over a slow Thanksgiving weekend

 So it was comedy, staged for the world’s entertainment.

What genre of comedy? Humiliation comedy; public shaming comedy; hipster guy taunting an unhip woman in unhip jeans comedy, with the pretext that she was self-absorbed … Read the rest

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Jason figured out something about the “rage blogging” trope.

The really interesting thing is, the people complaining about “rage bloggers” and “drama” are doing the exact same thing as the bloggers they complain about, by pointing to things they disagree with and disagreeing with them. Publicly. Calling them out on things they disagree with, even while they themselves decry the “call-out culture” of disagreeing with people publicly.

Well yes.

Actually the people doing that fit the description much better than we do, because they’re the ones who spend literally hours on Twitter or that unsavory forum every day tap tap tapping about nothing but a small handful of bloggers. That’s the only subject of their rage-tweeting and rage-forum posting.… Read the rest

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Now Elan is all pissed off at people who don’t think his bullying of a somewhat rude passenger was the wittiest and most richly-deserved schooling ever.

elan gale @theyearofelan

My wife’s dog’s friend knows a guy who saw a guy who knew Diane and he also knows the guy who anonymously posted stuff about her health

So last night I met the dude who saw the guy who knew a man who wrote the stuff on the message board and then I WROTE AN ARTICLE ABOUT IT

Oh, I saw someone write an article about a thing my dog’s wife’s friend saw on a message board and I AM ENRAGED

I have poorly thought out opinions about things I skimmed

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Two reactions.

Amanda Marcotte @AmandaMarcotte

http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2013/11/bullying-at-35-thousand-feet/…If you’ve been passing around that funny story of a man schooling a woman on a plane, here’s the other side.

Renee Hendricks @reneehendricks

Yep, still amusing, OphieB – - http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2013/11/bullying-at-35-thousand-feet/ … – being ill doesn’t give you a free pass to be a whiny ass to everyone.

… Read the rest

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So apparently there’s a thing in the UK called (toe-curlingly) “Movember”? And it’s something about growing moustaches and raising money for charity? I guess? Something like that. Anyway Neil Singh and Arianne Shahvisi tell us in the New Statesman why it’s a bad thing.

For the most part, sponsored activities (day-long silences, sponge-throwing, public waxing) depend on the extreme, the outrageous, the ridiculous. Friends and family are, apparently, only willing to part with money to witness something odd, humorous or downright unpleasant. So what message does Movember convey to those whose moustaches are more-or-less permanent features? With large numbers of minority-ethnic men—for instance Kurds, Indians, Mexicans—sporting moustaches as a cultural or religious signifier, Movember reinforces the “othering”

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