If there’s a thing too ridiculous and hostile and contemptuous to be said, you can be sure there will be people to say it. On Reddit. To be passed on by Manboobz.

Her choice in clothing didn’t expose what he took a picture of to the public. He didn’t take a picture of her shins or her knees, he took a picture of the section of her that was under the skirt. It’s exposed to the sidewalk and the floor, but it’s not exposed to the public.

The Massachusetts legislature fixed that particular omission.

Massachusetts lawmakers Thursday passed a bill banning “upskirting” in response to a ruling by the state’s highest court that said a law aimed at criminalizing voyeurism did not apply to the snapping of secret photos up a woman’s skirt.

The bill now goes to Gov. Deval Patrick, who has publicly committed to signing it, his office said Thursday.

The bill would make photographing or recording video under a person’s clothing illegal, according to a statement from the office of Senate President Therese Murray.

Good. Thank you.

By the way…Is it illegal in Massachusetts (and all the other states) to, for instance, drill a hole in a neighbor’s wall to insert a tiny camera for the purpose of spying on them? Is that covered by the law aimed at criminalizing voyeurism?

 

It creeps me out to do this because it’s so me me me but Melody says it helps so I’m doing it anyway. If you’re planning to go to Women in Secularism 3 but haven’t gotten around to registering you should do it today if you want the chance to win a signed copy of Why Truth Matters.

Register here.

A very important thing, that I did not know about: the white man march.

If you go to the home page you will see a photo of four of the whitest white people anyone ever saw. They are dazzlingly white; whitely white white. They are posed as a family group but who knows if they are really a family. They could just be the four people who won the contest in each of four divisions:

• whitest little girl
• whitest little boy
• whitest woman
• whitest man

There’s an explanation or FAQ page for people who wonder what the white man march is all about.

The White Man March is scheduled for March 15th, 2014, and will involve coordinated pro-white activity around the world. The purpose is to spread information through activism, but also to make a statement that White people are united in their love for their race and in their opposition to its destruction.

Non-white groups such as La Raza have monthly marches and gatherings with many thousands of participants, while groups advocating for White interests remain relatively silent or hidden from the public. One of the major goals of the White Man March is to demonstrate that pro-White people are able to form a unified front and participate in large-scale action simultaneously, which will send a powerful message to our supporters, our enemies, and those of our race who are still on the fence. We also seek to set a precedent that other pro-white organizations can follow in the future.

Where’s the part about why it’s a white MAN march?

I guess that’s just taken for granted, because why would women be included? Crazy idea, amirite?

3. What are the main political and cultural statements you are hoping to make with the White Man March?

We are planning to show that White people are organized and impassioned, that we know what the anti-white agenda is all about, and that we are dedicated to waking up as many of our folk as possible. We will make it clear that we will not sit idly by as our race is discriminated against, mocked, displaced, and violently attacked, all of which amount to white genocide, according to the United Nation’s own definition of genocide. This is why one of our big messages, which will be displayed on many large banners, is “DIVERSITY” = WHITE GENOCIDE. These banners will spread the message to the public at large in the most effective way possible. This “diversity” agenda is being directed at white countries (and only at white countries) with various programs to ensure that there are less white people at schools and in the work force, which is unfair and discriminatory, taking away money and opportunities from the indigenous white people. “Diversity” is a codeword for White Genocide.

The indigenous white people. This is an American group, a US group, and this guy thinks white people are indigenous here. Oy.

Originally a comment by mildlymagnificent on Or even another Tosh.

My own feeling about the far too many self titled skeptics that I deal with online is that they’ve not really learned to be appropriately skeptical. The first and most important lesson for a real skeptic is to acknowledge that it is no longer possible, if it ever really was, to be a “renaissance man” or a fully rounded autodidact.

There really is a limit to how much of the available knowledge and skill in any given topic a non-expert can acquire. So the first responsibility of being skeptical is as accurate an assessment as possible of one’s own expertise. [Read more…]

Update March 8 See Justin Millikan’s comment @ 38 – he hadn’t read the article when he posted it, and apologizes for doing so. In turn I apologize for the rude things I said about him!

So, it’s International Women’s Day on Saturday. Well how fucked up is that, am I right? When is it ever International Men’s Day? When is it Rich People’s Day? White People’s Day? Straight People’s Day? Are we not all human beings???

Fortunately, the president of the Humanist Society of South Australia, Justin Millikan, is on the case. He posted a super-appropriate item on the HSSA page to make this very point. What super-appropriate item is that? A link to an article with the brilliantly aphoristic and wise title:

It is about humanism, not simply feminism [Read more…]

An eyewitness tells us in a comment that some of the people at Lev Tahor have fled.

I live less than a kilometre from this group’s houses (I can see them from my backyard across the cornfield) and in the country news travels fast… My neighbour called this afternoon to say that seven cop cars were blocking the entrance to the housing units.

It seems these persecuted families are on the move again…. The Chatham Daily News is now reporting that the 13 children who were due to be taken into protective care today and their parents have now fled to the Caribbean to frustrate justice AGAIN.

Before I saw that comment I saw an email from a reader with a link to the CBC reporting the same thing, along with the news that it looks as if the attempt to frustrate justice will fail. It looks as if they will be sent back to Toronto. [Read more…]

WHAT????

CNN reports the Massachusetts Supreme Court says upskirt photography is legal.

Massachusetts’ highest court ruled Wednesday that it is not illegal to secretly photograph underneath a person’s clothing — a practice known as “upskirting” — prompting one prosecutor to call for a revision of state law. [Read more…]

Amy has a good project: skeptics and atheists do good things and say you’re doing them.

Over the years I have self-identified as an atheist and as a skeptic. But lately, I look around these communities and I don’t see much that reflects who I am or how I feel about the world. [Read more…]

Originally a comment by Marcus Ranum on Separating god from morality.

Morality is such a human concept, it’s hard to see how it would apply to a god, anyway. What does “fairness” mean to a god? Or “honesty”? Can you “steal” from a god? Could a human and a god have a meaningful conversation about morality, especially given the vast power-differential between us?

Epicurus touched on this in one of his sayings:

A blessed and indestructible being has no trouble himself and brings no trouble upon any other being; so he is free from anger and partiality, for all such things imply weakness.

By the same token, I think the idea of a god loving a human (or all humans) makes about as much sense as loving your intestinal flora. Suppose I had moral expectations of my intestinal flora. What would those expectations look like, perhaps? And how could I communicate them to my intestinal flora in such a way as to transfer the moral burden of compliance to those bacteria? Let us imagine that I have a dictate I wish to make to my intestinal flora, namely that they not produce too much methane. Because, I their god, am an angry god when I fart in elevators. [Read more…]