It’s happening right now in Hyde Park.

The Bread and Roses team will be at Hyde Park across from Serpentine cafe at 1pm on Sunday 20 July to defy fasting rules during Ramadan in solidarity with the many beaten, harassed, flogged and arrested for eating and drinking during Ramadan in Iran and elsewhere. You can either join our picnic if you are close by or hold you own picnic of fast-defying event. Be sure to send us photos or videos of your day!

To show your support, also join the International Day to Defy Ramadan Fasting Rules on Facebook: [Read more…]

Oh shit I hadn’t seen this until just now. The Guardian yesterday:

As many as 100 of the world’s leading HIV/Aids researchers and advocates may have been on the Malaysia Airlines flight that crashed in Ukraine, in what has been described as a “devastating” blow to efforts to tackle the virus.

The Voice of America this morning, which is the most recent I can find:

The international AIDS community is reeling from the loss of many as 100 researchers who died when Malaysia Airlines flight 17 crashed in eastern Ukraine. They were en route to an AIDS conference that is about to begin in Australia.  Among the dead, a leader in AIDS research, Dr. Joep Lange.

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Stephanie makes a very important point in “You’re Not Oppressed, White Atheist Dudes”.

Mild forms of oppression don’t historically stay mild. When a group is an acceptable target for hostility in normal times, this increases their acute risk under more unusual circumstances. Marginalized groups are more likely to be scapegoated in times of economic stresses or societal upheaval. People from marginalized groups are more likely to be considered “safe” targets of random aggression or to be the object of the rare dangerous paranoid delusion.

That that that that that.

I think that’s what’s happening right now with respect to women, and it scares me. Not for myself, but for women and girls in worse circumstances.

Another variety not to give.

Ha! So now they’re actually emailing PZ with this drivel – this “you allow no dissent / you are divisive” drivel that people mutter like a prayer in some rank places.

You seem to start arguments in the atheist community, which largely serve to divide the community and make it harder for us to get in a position to actually do something about the harm that religion causes humanity. You have people on other websites talking bad about other atheists and scientists in your name.

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Why I don’t love the “atheist community” chapter 782. A public Facebook post by “The Amazing Atheist” who is sadly unamazing. Jaclyn Glenn shared it in a public post of her own.

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Well we all know the rules. Women are either fuckworthy, or killworthy. There is nothing else. (Just this morning on Twitter someone called me “old superfluous prune” – meaning, I should be dead, because I’m too old and ugly to be still alive using up resources. Old ugly men are ok because men have multiple uses but old ugly women are not ok because women have only one use.)

Hadley Freeman considers one instantiation of this universal law.

You’ll be thrilled to know – and I’m sure May will be absolutely delighted to know – that this week a male writer for the Spectator officially declared her to be hot; hotter, even, than Jemima Khan, just in case you’ve ever found yourself flummoxed by this debate. [Read more…]

So the Russian separatists are busily hiding and destroying all the evidence. If neutral parties show up and try to stop them doing that, they fire warning shots, and the neutral parties leave.

The OSCE was trying to gain access to one part of the large crash site but the commander of a rebel unit, known as Commander Glum, blocked them. After the warning shot, the OSCE convoy departed. [Read more…]

There was a pretty good Fresh Air yesterday based on a book, Trans Bodies, Trans Selves.

The new book Trans Bodies, Trans Selves is a collection of essays describing the varied experiences of transgender people — and the social, political and medical issues they face. It’s written by and for transgender and gender-nonconforming people.

The idea was inspired by the groundbreaking 1970s feminist health manual Our Bodies, Ourselves.

[Read more…]