May 2013
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AZ Lawmaker In Charge Of House Prayer Tells...
A lawmaker put in charge of delivering the opening prayer at yesterday’s session of the Arizona House of Representatives surprised his colleagues by using the opportunity to talk about his atheism and quote Carl Sagan.
USA Today says Juan Mendez (D-Tempe) put in a request to have Secular Coalition of Arizona director Serah Blain speak before the house during yesterday’s...
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“Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) intends to run for president — of the United States — and...”
– Reaching the ‘weather weapon’ stage (via wilwheaton)
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Alex Jones Is a Tornado Truther Because, Obviously
Yesterday, we explored the wild reality of Tornado Truthers, who believe that massive storms are created by the HAARP antenna farm in Alaska (HAARP is actually a research station to communicate with aliens living underground — only fools think otherwise). Still, the whole affair was missing the input of King Nut himself, Alex Jones. Well, guess what? He’s down.
“Of course...
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“People speak sometimes about the ‘bestial’ cruelty of man, but that is terribly...”
– Dostoyevsky (via kateoplis)
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“On its face, defeasibility is a modest concept, with roots in logic and...”
– Tania Lombrozo, Defeasibility (via ludimagister)
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“The quicker we all realize that we’ve been taught how to live life by people...”
– Joe Rogan (via sirmitchell)
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“Try to acquire the weird practice of savouring your mistakes, delighting in...”
– Daniel Dennet, Daniel Dennett’s seven tools for thinking
(via stoweboyd)
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“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it is tied to everything...”
– John Muir (via we-are-star-stuff)
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Afghan Mullah Marries, Kills 8-Year-Old Girl on... →
This is a pretty horrific story that comes out of Afghanistan. The source for it is Mustafa Kazemi, an Indian war correspondent, who has been operating in Afghanistan since 2010 and has worked for AFP.
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Virginia GOP Nominee For Attorney General Would... →
abaldwin360:
If a woman in Virginia has a miscarriage without a doctor present, they must report it within 24 hours to the police or risk going to jail for a full year. At least, that’s what would have happened if a bill introduced by Virginia state Sen. Mark Obenshain (R) had become law. And yet, the […]
*sigh*
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Western leaders study 'gamechanging' report on... →
European governments and the Obama administration are this weekend studying a “gamechanging” report on global drugs policy that is being seen in some quarters as the beginning of the end for blanket prohibition.
Publication of the Organisation of American States (OAS) review, commissioned at last year’s Cartagena Summit of the Americas attended by Barack Obama, reflects growing dissatisfaction...
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The dark side of home schooling: America's... →
The fundamentalist home schooling world also advocates an extraordinarily authoritarian view of the parental role. Corporal punishment is frequently encouraged. The effects are, again, often quite devastating. “People who experienced authoritarian parents tend to turn into adults with poor boundaries,” writes one pseudonymous HA blogger. “It’s an extremely unsatisfying and unsustainable way to...
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Pro-life activists threaten to slit throat of TD →
choosechoice:
A Fine Gael TD has revealed that pro-life activists have threatened to slit her throat and burn down her house.
So pro-life
“I received an email which I’m sure we all did last week where I’m going to have my throats [sic] cut from my neck to my naval and my entrails are going to spill out. There are some very strange people in this country who call themselves Christians.”
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Law Protecting Afghanistan Women Blocked By...
KABUL, Afghanistan — Conservative religious lawmakers in Afghanistan blocked legislation on Saturday aimed at strengthening provisions for women’s freedoms, arguing that parts of it violate Islamic principles and encourage disobedience.
The fierce opposition highlights how tenuous women’s rights remain a dozen years after the ouster of the hard-line Taliban regime, whose...
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Understanding Why God-References Are a Big Deal
“Crisis-Induced Devotion” and the Importance of Church-State Separation
Think back to your school days, when your class would recite the Pledge of Allegiance. If you looked around the classroom during the exercise (and of course most of us did from time to time, even though we were supposed to be focused on the flag), would you see a room filled with fine young patriots, standing...
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Iran moves to legalize marriage for girls under 10...
When Saudi Arabia announced three months ago that girls as young as 10-years old would now be allowed to marry, Iran decided to drop the age limit even further.
Iranian Christian news service Mohabat News reports a member of the Iranian Parliament (Majiles) Mohammad Ali Isfenani, “we must regard 9 as being the appropriate age for a girl to have reached puberty and qualified to get...
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“Seek not to follow in the footsteps of men of old; seek what they sought.”
– Matsuo Basho, poet (1644-1694), via Wordsmith.org (via faithinirony)
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Low IQ & Conservative Beliefs Linked to Racism &... →
ikenbot:
There’s no gentle way to put it: People who give in to racism and prejudice may simply be dumb, according to a new study that is bound to stir public controversy.
The research finds that children with low intelligence are more likely to hold prejudiced attitudes as adults. These findings point to a vicious cycle, according to lead researcher Gordon Hodson, a psychologist at Brock...
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Nipples are Nipples: NYC Lifts Discriminatory...
Topless Women in Public Not Breaking the Law Says NYPD
Ladies of New York , you are free to walk bare-breasted through the city! New York City’s 34,000 police officers have been instructed that, should they encounter a woman in public who is shirtless but obeying the law, they should not arrest her. This is a good step towards gender parity in public spaces.
This decision means that...
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97.1% of 4000 climate science papers in 20 years... →
Abstract
We analyze the evolution of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, examining 11 944 climate abstracts from 1991–2011 matching the topics ‘global climate change’ or ‘global warming’. We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were...
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