Back to anarchy

One extra thought that I didn’t fit into yesterday’s post. If a centralised state is going to impose its authority on the general populace (as they tend to do), it has the responsibility to justify its existence, and provide ample reason why it should get to do that. In other words, you don’t get to [...]

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The rhetoric of anarchy

I’m finally reading An Anarchism FAQ. I’ve written before about not quite being convinced by the claims of anarchists, and about the things which the state might be good for. Some of my worries have been partially addressed so far, and I’ve got plenty more reading to do. I think it’s worth attempting at least [...]

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Everybody Draw Muhammad… again! …Day!

A new video went up on Monday. Embedded below, if you missed it. And you really should check out what Thunderf00t‘s been up to lately, if you’ve been running low on blasphemy.

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Because we want to

There have been squillions of stories just like this one. A woman who needs a liver transplant has been told she can get one, paid for by Medicaid. She’s turning it down. What she wants is to go to a different hospital, in a different state, where the doctors would be willing to do a [...]

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Fem vs. Fem

I may be taking something of a step back here. I’ve talked about feminism a few times before, what it means to me, what it means to someone else, and how it relates to skepticism or men’s rights. It’s been an important theme to much of my engagement with the rest of the internet, and [...]

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Internet Social Justice, motherfucker

I just want to record and repeat a quick quote from Holly at the Pervocracy. She points out something really important to consider when talking with people who might partly agree with you, but might also seem to make some offensive assumptions: It took me a while to learn Internet-Social-Justice-Speak, with its rather dense and [...]

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It’s like shooting… oh, I get it

Getting involved and doing stuff is hard, which is why people don’t often bother. When taking action involves leaping multiple hurdles, even minor ones, with no immediate and obvious pay-off, it can become really tempting to shrug it off and move on, and tell yourself that it wouldn’t have made that big a difference, or [...]

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Gotta Pray To Play (in the USA)

The Freedom From Religion Foundation’s ongoing legal battle, which challenges the US government’s recognition of an official “National Day Of Prayer”, has had a positive ruling overturned and the case thrown out by a Court of Appeals. They still have recourse, and are already moving on with plans to have the case reheard. The law [...]

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Buy the police a few drinks first

… as NWA never said. Ed Brayton posted this video earlier. It’s pretty horrendous. So a guy’s cycling to a friend’s house, and rides his bike across the pavement to the front door when he gets there. He’d not been cycling for any real distance along the pavement, but it’s still illegal enough to apparently [...]

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Planned Falsehoods

We don’t really have a single organisation comparable to Planned Parenthood in the UK. Many of their services are available on the NHS, and there are various other private organisations doing similar things, but none with quite the same national scope and importance. They’ve been central to a good deal of American politics lately, though, [...]

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