The best review of The Happy Atheist yet

The Happy Atheist

It’s good to see The Happy Atheist getting great reviews. This one is from…the Discovery Institute! And even better, they put their top man on it, the inimitable Casey Luskin!

Go ahead, you can read the whole Luskinish thing, but here’s the shorter version of Casey Luskin:

PZ Myers can’t be happy, because he’s angry and kinda mean.

Thank you, Casey! I’m glad you were able to discern my true character there, unlike all these other people I meet who keep insulting me with phrases like “teddy bear.” But I should point out that “happy,” “angry,” and “mean” aren’t necessarily incompatible. Maybe he’s used to the Christian version of “happy,” which is synonymous with sheeply and oblivious bliss-ninny idiocy.

I like my joy ferocious.

Gulf states develop amazing new biomedical technology

First off, I must mention that these states are awful, evil, terrible places under the thumb of an obsolete religious morality.

Those under the age of 21 living in Kuwait found to be taking part in homosexual acts currently face prison sentences of up to ten years. Homosexual acts are banned in all GCC member countries, which include Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

Earlier this week Oman suspended their newspaper The Week, alleging it had printed an article that was considered sympathetic towards homosexuals.

Homosexuality is illegal in 78 countries across the world and is still punishable by death in five countries, which include Iran and Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

But despite their repressive social policies, they must have made an astonishing scientific breakthrough.

Yousouf Mindkar said routine clinical screenings of expatriates entering Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) such as Kuwait would be introduced under new proposals. Persons who are identified as LGBT through the tests would then be refused entry into the country.

Whoa. They have clinical screenings for the Gay? I would like to know about those, but they aren’t giving out the details. I hope it’s not that fuzzy digit length stuff, or lie detector tests, because they don’t work. But something that can unambiguously detect what sex a person finds attractive would be really interesting.

They couldn’t possibly be lying about this, could they? Those government officials from the GCC all sound so rational.

MP Mohammad Al Jabri called on the Kuwati authorities to clamp down on Amnesty itself, ‘I condemn the brazen requests by an organization that introduces itself as a protector of freedoms and human rights,’ Al Jabri said.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs should respond urgently to the so-called Amnesty International to highlight the noble Islamic principles, values and teachings in which the people of Kuwait believe and which reject the propagation of vice and debauchery in the community.”

Retired MP Mohammad Al Hayef accused Amnesty International of “interlacing honey with poison” and suggest that gay people “destroy humanity”.

He told Al Rai “It should have reinforced the slogan of human rights and the defense of the oppressed, not confuse issue[s] and interlace honey with poison so that one of its officials dares to encourage behavior that is against the human nature and clashes with the teachings of all apostles. Deviant behavior and attitudes undermine and destroy humanity.”

Don’t they sound nice? They’d be right at home in Texas or Washington DC. I guess we can expect our Republicans to follow suit on this important issue any day now.

The Kuwait Times reported earlier on Wednesday that coffee shops which allow men and women to drink together “corrupt morals” according to Kuwaiti MPs.

I wonder if there is a clinical test in the wings to determine whether someone has shared coffee with a person of a different sex, and I wonder if it will be sensitive enough to detect whether you’ve had coffee with a gay person.

Feminism in Tech is Cancer!

For your entertainment, Stop Tech Feminism.

Feminism should be treated in the workplace the same way other hate speech and hateful ideologies are, through outright rejection.

Make it clear that your workspace is one which fosters open discussion and tolerance of difference of opinion. No one should be fearful for engaging in a conversation.

When hiring, look for posts and tweets of support for militant feminism during standard HR scans. Make this a normal part of your filtering process, just as you wouldn’t hire a Klansman or a member of the Westboro Baptist Church.

The goals of most feminists don’t intersect with those of your company, as they wish to spend their time manufacturing outrage both within your company and on social media.

The best way to deal with the innovation killing drama that feminism brings is to never have it allowed into your organization to begin with.

It would be hilarious if there weren’t a lot of people in positions of influence who actually had these beliefs.

If you need an antidote now, read about the Petrie Multiplier instead.

That taciturn fool sitting sullenly in the corner at the party is Lord of All

Niall Ferguson, that great gallumphing Harvard clod with delusions of superiority, has discovered a new way to put his critics in their place: he has invented a Blo(g)viation Index, which purports to provide a measure of one’s competence. It is — get ready for this — your number of twitter followers divided by your number of tweets. He has 60,000 followers and has made only 140 tweets, therefore his Index is very large. Of course. He wouldn’t have mentioned it or invented it otherwise.

The one virtue of it is that it will give him, and only him, incentive to shut up on twitter, since his index favors those who say little. And it allows him to disparage his critics who engage on twitter more.

(By the way, I looked, my Blo(g)viation Index is about 7, compared to his 400+. Does he realize that every time he snipes at Paul Krugman, his score goes down?)

Oprah’s bigotry

Oprah Winfrey did it again. She did an interview with Diana Nyad, and along the way, Nyad revealed that she was — oh, horrors — an atheist. Oprah could not process that. She’s so thoroughly anti-atheist that she could not imagine that someone who had accomplished something, who was a human being right before her eyes, could actually not believe in a god, so she vocally denied the possibility. David Niose has written the best criticism I’ve read so far.

Obviously, Oprah needs needs an education. At a minimum, she needs to add some Carl Sagan titles to her book club’s reading list. An outspoken nonbeliever, Sagan was known not just as a great scientist, but for inspiring wonder and awe. Many would agree that his Pale Blue Dot commentary is more profound than any religious broadcast. Or perhaps Oprah should consider the deep message behind the monologue of Julia Sweeney’s Letting Go of God. Atheism and awe are quite compatible.

Oprah, exalted by so many but oblivious to the fact that she is dehumanizing atheists, does more to perpetuate negative attitudes toward nonbelievers than Pat Robertson or James Dobson ever could. The general public takes comments from Robertson and Dobson with a grain of salt – but Oprah, as a media tycoon and a beloved celebrity whose opinions are taken seriously by millions, has just confirmed that atheists are "the other," outsiders who just don’t belong in the in-group. (And the evidence is clear that atheists are indeed widely, and wrongly, scorned in America. With commentary such as Oprah’s, we can see why.)

Maybe she needs to devote a show to educating herself and her viewers on the awe-inspiring, wondrous aspects of atheism and secular humanism?

Yes! And of course, to illustrate that atheists are wonderful, sensitive, caring people who are delighted with the universe, she should invite ME to be on the show.

Oh, wait.

Good work, Minnesota talk radio

For once, I approve. Corey Cove, a talk radio host on KFAN in Minneapolis had that shameful and shameless psychic fraud, Chip Coffey on his show…and he shredded the kook. None of that Oprah/Larry King style simpering credulity, he just ridiculed his predictions and demanded that he back up his claims with evidence.

Coffey was upset and complained that the host was rude to him and called that unprofessional. You know, I’ve been on a few radio shows, and I never go into them on the assumption that the host will suck up to me; I expect that I will have to defend my ideas, and I actually prefer it if the host is open about any disagreement.

I guess psychics don’t get very far if they can’t demand deference.

Matthew Barnett, sleazebag and rapist

matthewbarnett

Matthew Barnett raped a 14 year old girl — he plied her with alcohol until she could barely stand up, and then had sex with her. He claims it was fully consensual (now where have we heard that before?) But the facts of the case are inarguable.

She was 14.

She was drunk.

He provided much of the alcohol.

One of his buddies videotaped the act.

He dumped the unconscious girl on the porch of her home — where she could have frozen to death.

He freaking confessed to all of the above to the police.

A 13 year old friend was also raped by another boy.

The boy said she had said no repeatedly, and he had sex with her anyway.

Open and shut, right? These boys ought to be in jail, or at the very least in the juvenile court system. This was a horrendous abuse and a ghastly crime.

But — are you ready for the ameliorating factors? — all of the boys involved were popular high school jocks. Matthew Barnett’s grandfather is a state congressman. And the goddamned town full of righteous assholes who populate Maryville, Missouri joined up to recite the sacred mantra of “boys will be boys” and to condemn and harass the victims. The victim’s mother lost her job because her employer didn’t want to go against the popular families; other kids threatened her on facebook and twitter; she was suspended from the cheerleading squad; her brother was booed at sports events; a girl showed up at a dance wearing a t-shirt that said “Matt 1, Daisy 0”.

The case was quietly dropped and never went to court. The victim’s family are still being treated as pariahs. Matthew Barnett is currently enrolled as a student at the University of Central Missouri, single-handedly bringing the average moral status of students there into the sewer of turpitude.

And he gloatingly left this message on twitter:

If her name begins with A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z, she wants the D.

He’s a disgusting human being from a corrupt little town. I’d like to see the case reopened, but he’s got trouble now.

(via Alyson Miers and Ophelia Benson)

A protest is planned for 22 October. Follow #OpMaryville and #Justice4Daisy for more information.

Also, the UCM Facebook page has been flooded with comments pointing out their rapist student.

Good taste and the Tea Party

I was reading about the “million” veterans marching on Washington DC (it was more like a few hundred) when I saw this peculiarly decorated car and learned something new.

hitler-cancer

Surely a car door so flamboyantly and colorfully decorated could not be carrying a lie — maybe smoking doesn’t cause cancer after all. I must check this out. I looked further for more details on this spectacularly informative vehicle. By the way, it’s true that Hitler was a fanatical anti-smoker, and the Nazi government had the first effective anti-smoking campaign.

smokercar

Wow! Who is this person, “Smoker on Strike”? I must learn more about such a wise and authoritative person.

So I found her CV. It is amazing. Did you know she’s looking for work as a web designer?

She designs the most beautiful websites in the world. She says so herself.

By the way, I’m all puked out this morning, so I can safely navigate to those links and suffer barely a ripple of the dry heaves. If your stomach is more robustly occupied right now, you might not want to look.

That is a good cartoon

The Digital Cuttlefish has found an excellent expression of religious thought.

show-me-a-sign-cartoon

That isn’t photoshopped or fudged in any way — that is the actual, complete cartoon that Ken Ham has happily encouraged everyone on the internet to share around.

It’s perfect. We ask for evidence of their god, they point to one of their own silly texts. And we really are stunned, shocked, and surprised, just like the guy in the cartoon…because we had no idea anyone could be that stupid.

Yell at ’em until they believe!

Wow. Glenn Beck really is an authoritarian tool. Watch this clip; he’s ranting at the microphone at children, insisting that they must learn that their rights come from god.


Push them. Well, they’re going to cry, I’ll hurt their feelings. PUSH ‘EM!, because if you don’t do it now, it’s going to be much worse when they’re pushed and they’re shoved and they’re shot. Push them! Teach them! The need to know the truth and the need to be pushed up against the wall once in a while so they know they can defend themselves. They know they can survive. They don’t run around like little girls crying at the drop of a hat. Push them!

You’ll be relieved to know that his tirade is directed only at little boys. You little girls out there are free to laugh at his magic god and recognize that your rights represent privileges and responsibilities conferred by your fellow human beings.

And I hope that the rest of you all see that bullying kids into guilt is also a bad thing. You don’t want to be like Glenn Beck, do you?