On the other hand

In contrast, there’s the predictably and reliably flippant opinion (or pretend-opinion) of the always flippant and callous Brendan O’Neill.

I know we’re all supposed to be spitting blood over Katie Hopkins’ Sun column about African migrants. In fact, anyone who isn’t currently testing the durability of their computer keyboard by bashing out Hopkins-mauling tweets risks having their moral decency called into question.

There you go – predictable and callous. The important thing is to register disdain for people who object to a high-circulation newspaper’s publication of a piece calling African migrants cockroaches. Nicely done, Brendan; your priorities are an inspiration to us all.

[Read more…]

Actual dehumanization

I didn’t know who Katie Hopkins was until just now. I’m catching up. She was once on The Apprentice, therefore she’s a “media personality.” She wrote a column for the Sun in which she called migrants such as the ones who drowned in the Mediterranean on Sunday “cockroaches.”

Now the UN High Commission for Human Rights has compared that to propaganda for genocide.

Well, yes. It is comparable. That’s what genocide propaganda sounds like. That’s how it works. It persuades people that certain kinds of humans are not human. [Read more…]

Sabeen Mahmud

Terrible news out of Pakistan – another valuable person murdered. Sabeen Mahmud was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Karachi today.

The Mary Sue did a write-up about her two years ago.

Sabeen Mahmud (above, in blue), who says she fell in love with technology the first time she ever saw a Mac, just organized Pakistan’s first ever Hackathon last month, aimed specifically at finding ways to use technology to fix or at least alleviate Pakistan’s political problems. According to a piece by Wired, the gathering was pretty amazing for everyone involved.

Mahmud runs a small technology firm, but hosted the gathering of forty (whittled down from 120 applications) in her café The Second Floor, which she founded because she felt Karachi, the most populous city in Pakistan, needed “a space where people could gather around shared interests, an interdisciplinary space for collaboration and brainstorming.” And even though she’d done no research and was living with family at the time, Mahmud felt that she was the woman for the job.

[Read more…]

Movies probably are not for you

Surprise surprise, comedy that aims at the frat boy crowd turns out to be so obnoxious (aka racist and sexist) that actors actually walk off the set. Surprise surprise, it’s an Adam Sandler movie.

Nearly a dozen Native American actors and a cultural adviser walked off the set of an Adam Sandler movie that’s currently filming because of depictions they found insulting, according to a report by Indian Country Today Media Network.

Actor Loren Anthony said the script, penned by Sandler and his longtime screenwriting partner Tim Herlihy, was insulting to Native women and elders and inaccurately portrayed Apache culture. He said the actors, who were supposed to be playing Apache men and women, were made up to resemble Comanches. Anthony and David Hill were among the actors who walked off the set Wednesday.

Hey it was a joke. Can’t you take a joke? Can’t anybody take a joke? [Read more…]

Stripping these protections in the name of religious liberty

Wow – evil in America. The ACLU blog has the details:

A committee of the US House of Representatives decided that employees in the District of Columbia could be fired for using in vitro fertilization to start a family or for becoming pregnant while unmarried.

That’s right, people of D.C.: members of Congress just voted to let your boss fire you for personal decisions you make at the doctor’s office — because your boss believes those decisions aren’t consistent with his religious beliefs. Now, the whole House may take a vote on this discriminatory measure.

[Read more…]

“Dan Savage recently made a lewd smear against Pope John Paul II”

Catholic thought leaders are upset and angry about a proposed new sitcom that they say is based on the life of Dan Savage. Well they say it’s based on the life of anti-religious bigot Dan Savage, to be exact.

April 21, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Catholic leaders joined the Media Research Center (MRC), the Family Research Council (FRC), and the American Family Association (AFA) in a national campaign to educate the public about a Disney ABC sitcom pilot based on the life of anti-religious bigot Dan Savage. MRC and FRC sent a letter to Ben Sherwood, president of Disney/ABC Television Group, nearly four weeks ago urging him to pull the plug on the new show but have still not received a response.

Still no response! Sounds like anti-Catholic bigotry, for sure. Normally entertainment executives are eager to get into discussions with people who tell them to pull the plug on shows that aren’t Catholic enough. [Read more…]

Earthquake time

Of course. [Some of] Gamergate is picking up Dawkins’s cool hashtag. Make #‎UPINFY‬ trend wooha!

DragonKing ‏@BahamutDKing 6 hours ago
#gamergate Earthquake time make #UPINFY trend and show these there are no safe spaces we can’t prove are not safe from facts.

Kozi ‏@SergeantKozi 8 hours ago
@_Icze4r Check the #UPINFY tag for the latest culture war front, (University Probably Is Not For You) in response to Based Mom’s treatment

Video Culture Replay ‏@VCR_Blog 8 hours ago
If you are triggered by clapping and different opinions than those taught by mainstream “academic feminists”, #UPINFY

Ross The Boss ‏@gigagiga333 8 hours ago
#Gamergate please boost this tag #UPINFY

Akashi ‏@Onetailedfox3 8 hours ago
We should really just start replying to any SJW with #UPINFY. It is amazing.

Thanks, Richard. It’s lucky for us you’re such a feminist, isn’t it.

What language are they speaking? Is it English?

I think what set Dawkins off on his University Probably Is Not For You hashtag spree was Christina Hoff Sommers on her own Twitter spree on the subject of her talk at Oberlin on Monday.

He replied to one of her tweets:

Richard Dawkins‏@RichardDawkins
@CHSommers What language are they speaking? Is it English? English is my native language and I couldn’t understand a single word they said.

Kids today eh. Students eh well I never. Young people talk a strange lingo get offa my lawn wot wot. [Read more…]

Guest post: Presto, vaccination levels shot up into herd immunity levels

Originally a comment by quixote on California has the “personal belief” exemption.

Some little municpal health department near Vernal, Utah, was trying to figure out how to up the vaccination rate. The vaccination cost $25. A personal belief exemption involved ticking a box on a form.

Well, a local live wire figured they should reverse the incentives. They made the vaccination free and charged $25 for administrative costs to fill out a more time-consuming exemption form.

Presto, vaccination levels shot up into herd immunity levels (above 95%) and the problem was solved.

What struck me about this story that I heard from a relative is how little it took for people to decide their deeply held personal beliefs were totally negotiable.

Add to that the entirely justifiable costs of billing anti-vaxxers for all the contact tracing and unnecessary medical expenses incurred by their BS, and I bet you could get vaccination rates back up where they belong.