Apparently in the uproar over beheadings committed by ISIS, some have noticed that America’s ally Saudi Arabia has committed quite a few of them as well: The escalation of the war against the Islamic State was triggered by widespread revulsion at the gruesome beheading of two American journalists, relayed on YouTube. […]
Read MoreIn the virtue stakes, reverence leaves empathy at the starting line
In France, individual citizens run a satirical magazine, the Charlie Hebdo, which publishes cartoons making fun of Muhammad among countless other current world leaders and historical figures. In retaliation, terrorists storm the office and murder 12 people at that office, as well as five more at a kosher market. As […]
Read MoreOdds and ends– blog redesign/freeze peaches for sale
So, two things to mention here. First, hey look! New blog design. I’ve been wanting to change it for quite some time to something more clean and minimalist, and am pretty happy with how things are now. Though I do talk about personal issues from time to time, this isn’t […]
Read MoreWhen doxing is okay
Doxing (from dox, abbreviation of documents), alternatively spelled doxxing, is the Internet-based practice of researching and broadcasting personally identifiable information about an individual. — Wikipedia In some cases, this “research” involves simply looking at the email address from which a message came, and including it rather than expunging it when […]
Read MoreThe saga of learning a new craft
Update: I’m now selling freeze peaches at my Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/Rillion I haven’t been writing much lately, I know. That’s due to a lot of factors, but one of them is something I have the opportunity to now write about and show you. I’ve been learning how to make things with […]
Read MoreHow I know this isn’t about freedom of speech
So, you want me to explain how I can tell that your Facebook page entitled “Should Miri Mogilevsky be murdered?” is not “an exercise in Free Speech”? Okay, I can do that. 1. First of all, Facebook is a privately owned space on the internet, a web site. It’s not […]
Read More“Governor brings religion into the public sphere”
KS governor Sam Brownback. Photo credit: Brent Wistrom, The Wichita Eagle Fearing terms is odd. But in terms of terms to fear I’d suggest “public square” and “public sphere.”When it comes to church and state separationthese words are oft used for equivocationof an individual’s right to express a thoughtand a […]
Read MoreFreezepeaching the WBC
Stephanie Zvan at Almost Diamonds came up with an excellent t-shirt idea: an image of a peach, half-frozen in a block of ice, with the slogan “Freeze Peach! Not sure what it is, but it’s mine.” This is in reference to the continual shouting of “free speech” in order to […]
Read MoreMemo to Tony Perkins
You do not get to operate a hate group without being called a hate group. Sorry. Yes, when your group says that homosexuals are “destructive to society” and should be “exported from the U.S.,” it’s a hate group. When it says that we should return to having criminal sanctions for […]
Read MorePriorities
A couple of months ago I wrote about different categories I fit in, ideologically and politically. I was tempted to expand on it earlier this month when PZ Myers wrote a post asking people what kind of atheist they are– scientific, philosophical, political, or humanist. I understood what he was […]
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