Teresa MacBain tells us about a disturbing law in Kentucky.

On August 17, 2012, the Kentucky Supreme Court refused to hear a motion for discretionary review, brought by American Atheists and local plaintiffs, to a state law that makes it mandatory that the Commonwealth and its citizens give credit to Almighty God for its safety and security.  This request was denied in a single line that said that the “…Petition for Discretionary Review is denied.”  Signed, Chief Justice, Kentucky Supreme Court. The law states, “The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God as set forth in the public speeches and proclamations of American Presidents, including AbrahamLincoln’s historic March 30, 1863, presidential

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Let’s try this again. I keep seeing discussions of Chris Stedman and his new book that complain of how personal and hostile and unfair the criticisms of him are. Let’s see if I can spell out my dissent without sounding (or even being) personal and hostile and unfair. Religion News Service has an interview with him, so that provides an occasion.

On the blog NonProphet Status, and now in the book, Stedman calls for atheists and the religious to come together around interfaith work. It is a position that has earned him both strident — even violent — condemnation and high praise. Stedman talked with RNS about how and why the religious and atheists should work together.

One. … Read the rest

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Tim Farley’s eagerly-awaited post on desperately tracking Mabus.

This post is the story of how those posts once again led to Markuze’s arrest by the Montreal Police. As in 2011 it took quite a bit of work to make this happen. Tedious, painstaking, often thankless work.  But this is the type of work skeptic activists need to be ready to do in order to get results.

Really – incredibly tedious and painstaking. I find it tedious just taking a screenshot; the thought of tracking down endless IP addresses makes me want to run away and join the circus. Thank you Tim. (Remember – Tim also did the tedious work of finding and talking to the guy who sent me … Read the rest

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Meanwhile, from the guys in purple shirts – the general synod of the Church of England has voted against allowing the appointment of women as bishops.

Well you know how it is. It’s who wants to stand up and talk about it, go on shows about it, go to conferences and speak about it, who’s intellectually active about it; you know, it’s more of a guy thing. Women aren’t so good at that. Women prefer to sit down and not talk about it. They prefer to stay home and not speak about it and to be intellectually inactive about it. Women are timid and quiet and tongue-tied and lazy. They don’t make good bishops.

No, I’m playing silly buggers, … Read the rest

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Dr Jen Gunter has a terrific post today on Savita Halappanavar – yes, another one. It starts with the fact that the hospital was checking fetal heart tones, not once, but several times a day. That’s a tell.

Fetal heart tones are not checked with any medical purpose in mind until viability (around 23-24 weeks). The presence of fetal heart tones was irrelevant because survival of a baby at 17 weeks with ruptured membranes and/or advanced cervical dilation is impossible. Ms. Halappanavar was not 22 weeks pregnant where there might be a 3% chance of survival (depending on weight, sex of the baby, gestational age, whether it is a singleton or a multiple gestation etc). At 17 weeks with ruptured

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The Montreal Gazette reports on Dennis Markuze. The headline is good.

Man charged with threatening people using social media — again

Yes exactly: again. He was charged with it before, he was released on condition that he not do it again, he did it again. A lot.

A Saint-Laurent man has been charged, again, with abusing social media to  threaten people who express their views online.

Dennis Markuze, 40, faces three new charges, including one alleging he  violated the conditions of a sentence he received in May for the same offence.  He was also charged with threatening the Montreal police officer who was  investigating claims from several of Markuze’s past victims. Those victims  alleged that Markuze’s threats have intensified

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Damn. Kevin Clash has resigned. That’s sad.

Mr. Clash has played Elmo on “Sesame Street” for decades. He was profiled in a documentary last year, “Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey.”

That documentary is why I know about him, as it probably is for a lot of people. He seems like an outstanding human being.

It looks as if Sesame Street, or PBS, or both, simply threw him to the wolves.

Last week, Sesame Workshop said the first man’s accusations were unfounded. The organization did not have any immediate comment about the second man’s lawsuit on Tuesday. But in a statement, it said:

Sesame Workshop’s mission is to harness the educational power of media to help all children the world

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The Telegraph informs us that Anjem Choudary has plans to “announce a fatwa” on Malala Yousufzai later this year.

What?

Anjem Choudary lives in London on state benefit and issues periodic “announcements” of this and that as if he had an army at his command. What does it mean for some random asshole to say he has plans to “announce a fatwa” on a teenage girl he doesn’t know? I could say I have plans to move into a penthouse on Central Park West, but that wouldn’t make it happen.

Whatever. Choudary has been getting attention from the media by saying ludicrously murderous things for years. It’s a thing.

Later this month, hardliners plan to gather at the notorious Red

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This just in.

Police Montréal‏@SPVM

D.Markuze was arrested for social media harassment (breach of probation). Thanks to those who helped with the investigation #Mabus#SPVM

Well hallelujah.… Read the rest

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India is still in a committed relationship with censorship. The Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray died on Saturday, and Bombay was shut down by way of farewell.

On Sunday, the police in Palghar, in Thane district, on the outskirts of Mumbai, arrested Shaheen Dhadha after she posted a status update on Facebook that questioned the shutdown, also known as a bandh. A local daily, the Mumbai Mirror, reported that Ms. Dhadha, 21, had written, “People like Thackeray are born and die daily and one should not observe a bandh for that.” The police also arrested her friend who “liked” the post, whom NDTV identified by her first name, Renu.

Got that? The head of a far-right Hindutva political party … Read the rest

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The new issue of Free Inquiry is out. It has a special section on the Women in Secularism conference. I did an article for that section, based on my part at the conference but not restricted to it. It is online.

The basic idea is that the stereotypical idea of women is not very well suited for overt rebellion against god.

The main stereotype in play, let’s face it, is that women are too stupid to do nontheism. Unbelieving in God is thinky work, and women don’t do thinky, because “that’s a guy thing.”

Don’t laugh: Michael Shermer said exactly that during a panel discussion on the online talk-show The Point. The host, Cara Santa Maria, presented

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We’ve got new people joining Freethought blogs – it’s going to be great.

Lalala I can’t wait to say who they are but I have to, we don’t say until their blogs are up and running, lalala I can’t wait.

You’ll be thrilled. I guarantee it.

(Well. When I say “you” I mean people who read B&W because they like it – not because they agree with every word of it, but because they like it as opposed to hating it. I don’t mean people who read it solely because they hate it and more especially me, and are monitoring it for things to spit bile at – thus increasing my hit count and causing millions of dollars to flow … Read the rest

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A festive Sunday morning in Indonesia in 2006, with coconut cakes and Javanese music and lots of women in hijabs and lipstick. They were there to chop up the genitals of 248 little girls.

It is April 2006 and the occasion is a mass ceremony to perform sunat perempuan or “female circumcision” that has been held annually since 1958 by the Bandung-based Yayasan Assalaam, an Islamic foundation that runs a mosque and  several schools. The foundation holds the event in the lunar month of the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday, and pays parents 80,000 rupiah (£6) and a bag of food for each daughter they bring to be cut.

The foundation pays the parents to slice up their daughters’ genitals.

At

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This thing on Facebook…

… Read the rest

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I don’t keep up with everything. I should but I don’t. A friend mentioned Eric Dondero to me and I had to resort to Google, because I hadn’t kept up. He’s pretty funny.

 Republicans around the country are responding to President Obama’s reelection in a variety of ways — among them: anger, depression, finger-pointing. But nobody had the same reaction as Eric Dondero, a former Ron Paul aide who blogs at LibertarianRepublican.net. In a post yesterday, Dondero, reasoning that the only recourse to Obama’s victory is “outright revolt,” laid out the terms of the “personal boycott” against Democrats which he plans to maintain for the rest of his life and which he hopes his followers will as well. What

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And it continues. Remember the crazed reactions to Rebecca’s article in Slate? In particular the one where Russell Blackford took the trouble to tweet a reporter for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in order to call Rebecca a liar? This one?

He’s at it again, or still. He’s still doing what he can to harm Rebecca.

 Why? I don’t know. I do not know.

He might say it’s because of Stef McGraw, but that doesn’t make sense. Stef McGraw doesn’t consider Rebecca the world’s most evil monster bully. Remember?

 Photo by Brian S. Engler.

 There are a lot of crazy people out there who want to destroy Rebecca. And there’s Russell Blackford, who also wants to destroy Rebecca. I … Read the rest

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Moving from Dublin and Galway to Athens for a moment – actors in and the producer and director of “Corpus Christi” have been charged with blasphemy.

A production of “Corpus Christi” in Athens was canceled this month after weeks of almost daily protests outside the theatre by priests and right-wing groups, including deputies from the ultra-nationalist Golden Dawn party.

Charges of “insulting religion” and “malicious blasphemy” have been filed after Bishop Seraphim of Piraeus lodged a lawsuit against those involved in the play, the officials said.

Our worst nightmare, eh? Fascists joining priests, priests joining fascists. Teaming up to stamp out everything that’s not fascist and priestly.

Dozens of demonstrators, including some from Golden Dawn, blocked the entrance of the

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