TAM London 2010

I don’t know why I’m doing that. But I found that balloon earlier, which was in the goody bag fun pack thing from last year’s meeting, and thought it’d make a good picture. For some reason. Anyway. I’m going along to TAM London again this year, and tickets are still available if you want to [...]

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You’re all a bunch of bastards! (Or: An exercise in diplomacy)

Okay. This one’s going to stretch me. That’s what she said. I’m going to try really hard not to let this turn into an angry rant. I know I like angry rants, but I think it’s worth exploring whether I can channel that same vehemence and passion into something less dickish. No, I haven’t had [...]

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Muhammad, therefore no Holocaust

The backlash following Everybody Draw Muhammad Day has begun. The Facebook page for “Everybody draw Holocaust day” is, as I post this, “liked” by 1,271 people. And, well, obviously they’re all entirely welcome to draw pictures of the Holocaust happening, or not happening. They’re certainly free to highlight the other genocidal atrocities in recent human [...]

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More on Project Prevention

The Liberal Conspiracy website has a better-informed and more thorough discussion of Project Prevention than I managed a few days ago. It’s increasingly clear that this is an organisation driven by a specific ideology, which doesn’t care to examine its own workings enough to question whether what it’s doing is really in its clients’ best [...]

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The R-word

So there’s this campaign which seeks to fight against the discrimination and prejudice often faced by those with learning disabilities. And… I’m not really a fan. Yeah, I think I’m just going to give up on trying to find a way to summarise my main point without sounding like a dick. In context, though, and [...]

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In which we learn that “pro-rape” is actually a thing

So PZ Myers discovered a truly appalling human being recently. Specifically he posted a link to this blog entry here, titled “Rape is equality”. It’s written by a Norwegian guy who calls himself “a libertarian and an antifeminist”. I contend that he doesn’t know what a libertarian is, but he’s half-right. If anything, this guy’s [...]

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Mid-day updatery

Hello there. I have some links about things for you to click your mices onto. – There’s been some bitching lately, mostly among Facebook groups, about people not being allowed to wear football strips or fly English flags in pubs, and how it’s obviously the fault of foreign people wearing turbans and claiming benefits. Allow [...]

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Are you late?

Shock and outrage has ensued following the announcement of something legal being advertised on TV. It’s a neat and understated little ad, and after all the furore I was amazed at how low-key the message is. You can watch it here. I’m not much interested in reiterating why this is a good thing, and why [...]

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Everybody Draw Muhammad Day

The prophet Muhammad is said to have lived around 570-632 C.E., and is a sacred figure to the world’s 1.5 billion followers of the religion of Islam. He didn’t look anything like the above picture, but that’s because I’m very bad at drawing. Depictions of the prophet Muhammad are forbidden under Islamic law, and they [...]

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Get paid not to have kids? I gotta get me a smack habit

– Here is an advert pointing out the disparity between the Shell oil company’s recent profits, and the humanitarian results of their recent massive oil spill. Here is a statement from Amnesty expressing disappointment that the Financial Times newspaper decided not to run this advert. Here are Naomi McAuliffe’s thoughts. – I’ve been hearing about [...]

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