There’s a thing I don’t understand. Well there are a lot of those, but one in particular. I saw a re-run on Nova last night of a 2010 episode about telescopes and the universe. (As usual I was multitasking at the time, so I probably missed some technical information.)

They showed us one of the giant telescopes, this one in Arizona; the narrator said dramatically that they open the eight-story doors while we saw the doors opening. We saw lots of images via that telescope and the Hubble and others, while various people explained that they can see to the very edge of the universe.

That’s what I don’t understand. Eight stories tall, that’s all very well, but it … Read the rest

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Uganda continues on its terrible course.

Uganda plans to ban 38 non-governmental organisations it accuses of promoting homosexuality, the Minister for Ethics and Integrity Simon Lokodo has said.

…

The minister says the organisations are receiving foreign support for Uganda’s homosexuals and accused gay people of “recruiting” young children into homosexuality, Reuters reports.

On Monday, police raided a gay rights conference being held at a hotel just outside the capital, Kampala.

Gay activists from around the region were detained for a few hours.

Not recruiting. Not promoting. Demanding equal rights for. There’s a difference.

Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone in the world understood this?

Feminists don’t “recruit” anyone to be a woman. Feminists don’t “promote” being a woman. … Read the rest

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This one is on an oldish thread, and I wouldn’t want anyone to miss it, because it’s so…choice. It’s from someone indignant about my thoughts on the Vatican’s attitude to “radical feminist” nuns, so presumably from a devout Catholic, who presumably thinks that he is therefore A Good Person. [Compassion is at the heart of every great religion. - Karen Armstrong]

Here’s devout good Phil’s pious comment:

What a bitter and twisted immoral egotistical imbecile you are. No one wants your obedience, they would prefer your absence, permanently. No doubt you’ve found yourself a comfortable little billet where you can open your big mouth as wide as you like as often as you like with impunity. Bully for

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A couple of good posts on how to not urinate on women.

Dana on How not to handle harassment.

Chris Clarke on Misogyny, the skeptics movement, and grand theft auto.… Read the rest

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Once in awhile Twitter’s recommendations come in very handy – I didn’t know Sherry Rehman was on Twitter. I didn’t even know she was Pakistan’s ambassador to the US – last I knew she was one of two surviving politicians in Pakistan who favored reforming the blasphemy law, and thus in very serious danger. I’m profoundly glad that she’s now an ambassador and thus less likely to be murdered by one of her own employees the way Salman Tazeer was.

So in reading her Twitter feed I find Foreign Policy’s list of important women on Twitter. I wish it weren’t an afterthought to a list of just important people on Twitter that was nearly 90% men, and I wish … Read the rest

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In a comment at Pharyngula responding to people saying things like

I find it sad that, for want of a better analogy, the terrorists seem to be winning… let’s not kid ourselves, this is a fight for our movement, and we have to be prepared to get your hands dirty if we don’t want this kind of dick head behavior to be associated with it.  Yet all I see is declarations of “oh, I’m not going, because poo-poo heads”… it should be more like “They what!?  Let’s take it to ‘em, troops”

Maureen said:

How dare you come here with so poor a grasp of what has been happening, such a complete blank in your brains?  How dare you suggest

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I got email threats about TAM today, so I’m not going.

One less thing to worry about.… Read the rest

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The popular Pakistani singer Ghazala Javed was shot to death in Peshawar yesterday along with her father.

Police official Imtiaz Khan said the ex-husband was suspected of involvement in the murders.

The singer had fled to Peshawar in 2009 to escape the then Taliban-dominated northwestern district of Swat as the army launched a sweeping offensive.

Ghazala Javed sung in her native Pashto language and released more than two dozen albums that were popular among Pashto speakers in the northwest.

She married businessman Jahangir Khan in 2010, but demanded a divorce after finding out he had another wife and because he tried to ban her from singing, the family said.

Not the Taliban, just a murderous possessive ex-husband.

Same thing.… Read the rest

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The pope’s consigliere says it’s the devil who’s making things hot for them.

In a rare interview with the Italian Catholic magazine Famiglia Cristiana, Bertone, the Vatican’s secretary of state, accused the media of “intentionally ignoring” the good things the Church does while dwelling on scandals.

Yeah the good things! Like telling people condoms cause Aids! Like trying to stop people using any kind of birth control ever! Like trying to make hospitals promise never to save a woman’s life if it requires an abortion – never ever ever. Like excommunicating anyone who tries to ordain a woman. Like saying no no no no no no women can never be priests because they are women. Good things!

Bertone branded

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A few hours after we did the hangout video yesterday, Russell Blackford did a tweet.

I see that DJ Grothe is still Witch of the Week. #bullies

Followed by another.

Freethought Blogs – the haven of bullies, bully-enablers, and witch hunters. I’m sick to death of this. #bullies

Some hours after that, Jeremy Stangroom did one.

…the bullies at FreeThought Blogs run the risk of precipitating a tragedy. Bullying ruins – and sometimes ends – lives. #bullies

So now you know. We (we of Freethought blogs, we who did that video, we whom DJ Grothe accused of turning women away from TAM by discussing harassment issues, we who have been rejecting that accusation, we who have been … Read the rest

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A pony, a pony, a pony!

The whole set is at Jason’s – Greta, Natalie, Sikivu, Rebecca, Taslima, Jen, Stephanie – The Horsewomen of the Feminist Apocalypse. Yesssss!

The artist is embertine.

… Read the rest

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I mentioned yesterday that a Karachi police station was being attacked by a mob who wanted to kill a guy who’d been arrested for blasphemy. It was eyewitness news on Twitter, not published news. Now there is published news.

A police station in central part of the city was attacked by an angry mob on Sunday that tried to break into the lockups to kill a blasphemy accused.

The Taimuria Police Station in North Nazimabad became a warzone when it arrested and booked a man under section 295(b) on accusation of desecrating a copy of Holy Quran.

…

“Then slowly people started gathering outside and it turned into a crowd. The screaming mob was demanding of us to hand

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Greg has an interesting followup comment on his claim about how intentional it all is.

I am not suggesting that people sat down in a board meeting and made a plan and DJ Grothe is carrying it out.

I am suggesting that a male dominated society within a society (JREF/TAM within Western Culture) is blind to certain things, and has certain self-serving expectations, and smooth sailing is defined when those expectation are not interfered with by, well, by “Feminist Bitches.”  Are there no conversations happening amongst (there’s that word again) JREF financiers, board members, DJ, others? Are there no emails distributed among any of the various mainly male defenders of DJ Grothe in social networking circles that say anything about

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I heard a bit of news on the radio late Friday evening that froze me to the spot with surprise -

A British Columbia Supreme Court judge has declared Canada’s laws against physician-assisted suicide unconstitutional because they discriminate against the physically disabled.

I thought immediately of Eric. I very nearly got back online to email him (but went to sleep instead).

In a 395-page ruling released Friday, Justice Lynn Smith addressed the situation faced by Gloria Taylor, a B.C. woman who was one of five plaintiffs in the case seeking the legal right to doctor-assisted suicide.

Taylor has ALS, a fatal neurodegenerative disease, and she sought the ruling to allow her doctor to help her end her life before

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Here’s what I was doing for the last couple of hours.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi_OsT7frPg

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It’s Sunday, Boko Haram bombs in Nigeria day, so there have been bombs going off in Nigeria today (because it’s Sunday). Boko Haram keeps its appointments.

Multiple blasts have hit at least three churches in the northern Nigerian state of Kaduna.

A local Red Cross worker told the Associated Press that at least 12 people had been killed and 80 injured in the attacks.

A decent haul. They could do better, but 12 + 80 is respectable.

Meanwhile, Urooj Zia reports via Twitter that there’s a mob attacking a police station right now in Karachi, trying to kill a man accused of “blasphemy” who is being held there. Taimuria police station.

A couple of days ago another mob in Quetta, … Read the rest

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A religion allows men to have multiple wives. What could possibly go wrong?

When Dr Zabina Shahian married Pervez Choudhry she thought he would be the man with whom she would settle down for the rest of her life and start a family.

But she did not know the former Conservative party leader on Slough Borough Council was still married.

Choudhry, 54, who claimed he did not realise the marriage in Pakistan was legally valid in the UK, was given a community order after admitting bigamy.

A “devastated” Dr Shahian now wants to help other women who are victims of polygamous marriages – a practice a leading family lawyer says is “rife” within the British Muslim community.

Jeez, what … Read the rest

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I forgot to say!

Jen is doing her annual SSA blogathon  – not the wimpy 6 hours I did but the big kahuna: twenty.four.hours.

You know why the SSA is a great thing and needs your support.

Donate to the Secular Student Alliance here.… Read the rest

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