Another day, another shooting

This one is at Umpqua College in Roseburg, Oregon. Ten people are dead.

I feel cynicism and despair. Nothing will be done. We are targets in the sights of the NRA, and there will be the usual excuses from armed lunatics.

More gun control NOW.

I’ve just heard on the evening news that the shooter was “mentally ill” — I’ve heard this repeatedly now. I’m going to demand some consistency.

If this guy was so sick in the head that he should have been institutionalized before he committed this crime, then we need to round up all the sick fucks on 4chan and get them medicated right now. If you’re not willing to do that, if it is too much to label a huge fraction of the privileged male population mentally ill, then stop claiming somebody who is actually representative of a common attitude is diseased.

How nice! An invitation from iERA

So polite, and they even spell my name correctly! And offer me a free weekend in London!

Dear PZ Myers

Hope you are well. As part of our ethos we would like to extend our hand of friendship to leading intellectual figures that hold views contrary to our own. With this spirit we would like to invite you to London for a dialogue on Islam and Atheism. Please let us know if you are available on any 3 weekends between January and March.

We will cover any associated costs of your travel, accommodation etc. We hope you accept our offer for a fruitful dialogue. Here is an example of one our past events:

Regards

Subboor

Now I have a dilemma, and will leave it to my readers to help me decide how to respond.

Is the correct answer “No” or “Hell no!”?

(In case you don’t know what the iERA is, here’s one helpful explanation.)

Bill Nye and abortion

Bill Nye talks about the realities of reproduction, and the right wing completely loses its shit.

It is not Nye at his most eloquent, but…he’s actually right about everything important. Read this title for an example of the inanity of far right responses, titled WATCH: Bill Nye, Science Guy Makes An Idiot Of Himself On Reproduction. Nye is clearer and more correct than whoever wrote that, making it particularly amusing. It makes a lot of claims.

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