There are some memes that need correcting – and when I say “correcting” I mean “multiple repetitions of correction for however long it takes” because that’s how it is with memes: they’re god damn hard to correct and often trying to correct them just entrenches them instead. (So don’t correct them? No, because what else can one do, and because at least they’ll be easier to find.)

One that I see everywhere is that the mysterious “small number of prominent and well-meaning women skeptics who, in trying to help correct real problems of sexism in skepticism, actually and rather clumsily themselves help create a climate where women — who otherwise wouldn’t — end up feeling unwelcome and unsafe” had been … Read the rest

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Bad journalism department. The Warrington Guardian reports on a guy who thinks his son’s autism was caused by the MMR vaccination.

A STOCKTON Heath father, who believes his son became autistic after being given the MMR vaccination, has welcomed a landmark Italian court ruling.

Judges in Rimini awarded the Bocca family £140,000 after the Italian health ministry conceded the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine caused autism in their nine-year-old son.

The result has given fresh hope for many parents with similar cases who feel the British legal process has failed them…

Oy. How to inspire new flocks of people to refuse to let their children be vaccinated.

Oliver’s family said he ‘markedly regressed’ within weeks of the jab from a

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Everyone says the CFI student leadership weekend was fantastic. Ed Brayton said so, and all the people tweeting about it at the time said so, and the pictures that Paul Fidalgo tweeted said so. (There was one of “James Croft with his invisible yo-yo” that cracked me up.)

CFI goes from strength to strength. Noticed that?

Maryam reports that the Council of Ex-Muslims 5th anniversary bash was also fantastic.

Good things!… Read the rest

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So anyway.

Way back last month I did a brief post on Martha Nussbaum’s new book on religious intolerance. There’s more to say. I’ll say a little of it now.

The overall point is just that she leaves out a lot. She puts a thumb on the scales by leaving out a lot.

I had the same problem with the Opinionator articles the book expands on. I wrote about them on July 20, 2010 and July 22, 2010. Maybe I said it all in there, but I’ll say some things before I look to find out.

An example. On page 2 she says the US has not been free of what she calls “religious prejudice and fear” and … Read the rest

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Meta. God this is boring. As briskly as possible -

Verbose S

to call the situations “threatening” runs a massive risk of saying that they were intentional threats, not that the person was reasonable to feel, at least, that there might be a threat.

What “massive risk”? There was nothing at stake. No one was named. What possible “massive risk” could there be? Harm to the reputation of [????????] That’s not a risk.

Verbose S again

 Thus, the “risk” I am talking about is another type of risk, the risk of using the word “threatening” to refer to the intentions of people as opposed to what people like Watson and Ophelia might feel based, which is wrong.  Thus, it opens

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Amanda Marcotte is familiar with the problem. She doesn’t stare in bewilderment if you mention it. She doesn’t tell you to lighten up or to ignore it or to grow a pair or to stfu.

I’ve got a toe in some geek stuff, but mostly I watch the culture from the outside, and I have to say, from an outside perspective, it actually looks like geek culture has allowed a form of entrenched and vicious misogyny to flourish. It’s not the majority or anything like that, but there’s a loud minority of geek men who have a hate-on for women that’s so grotesque that it often gets to fundamentalist Christianity levels.

That’s the problem. Amanda is familiar with it.… Read the rest

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A very apposite tweet just now…

Dan Savage‏@fakedansavage Thank you for supporting marriage equality, @gopmommy, but respectfully: If you think I’ve bullied people, you don’t know what bullying is.

Been there! Been there, been there, been there.

So has Jason.… Read the rest

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A piece of good news, for once – thanks to Maureen Brian for alerting us.

Saudi Arabia is allowing women to compete in the Olympics.

A statement issued by the Saudi Embassy in London says the country’s Olympic Committee will “oversee participation of women athletes who can qualify”.

The decision will end recent speculation as to whether the entire Saudi team could have been disqualified on grounds of gender discrimination.

And it will also…you know…allow women to compete.

Mind you, because of the stifling rules women have to obey in Saudi Arabia, and the lack of provision for athletic activities for women, there are few women who can actually take advantage of this permission…In fact there’s one. But, baby … Read the rest

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I hate irony. Or at least I hate “irony.” I hate the kind of “irony” that was those teenage boys tormenting Karen Klein on that schoolbus.

Justin thinks what Abbie Smith and the gang at ERV do is irony. I don’t.

How could it be? How would that work? Is the idea that they don’t loathe the people they call cunts and baboons and all the rest of it? That’s just silly; of course they do.

So where’s the irony?

It’s something about 4chan. Fuck 4chan. There’s not some special extra dimension where loathing becomes irony and where Karen Klein and those boys could kick back and lol at all those insults.

Fortunately, the sun is out from behind … Read the rest

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I was looking through The Random Things this morning and found this 1994 (yes! the clock goes back that far!) interview with Katha Pollitt. It reminds me that none of this crap is at all new or even surprising. I’ve been thinking and saying “But I thought everyone knew…” [that you don't call women cunts, that you don't assume women are lying if they even say some stranger made a pass at them, that you don't blame them for discussing sexual harassment], but that’s stupid.

For instance.

Q: Do you find yourself a feminist among civil libertarians and a civil libertarian among feminists?

Pollitt: Although there are certainly particular issues where you might find your wish to see women

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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 … Read the rest

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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 … Read the rest

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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… Read the rest

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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

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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, … Read the rest

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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… Read the rest

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

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

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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 … Read the rest

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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 … Read the rest

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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 … Read the rest

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