Because you can’t spell A-R-I-Z-O-N-A without N-A-Z-I.

Wonder if Governor Brewer can spell U-N-C-O-N-S-T-I-T-U-T-I-O-N-A-L?

-weez

A joyless Iranian Islamic cleric last week made the rather Pat Robertsonesque claim that immodestly dressed women cause earthquakes.

Jen McCreight, a skeptical blogger, decided to put the claim of immodesty-induced seismic activity to a tongue-in-cheek test by pledging to wear a bit of cleavage on 26 April; the event as it were has been making the rounds on Twitter under the hashtag #boobquake.

For her trouble, McCreight has been criticised for sexual self-objectification by some equally humourless female supremacists who deign to instruct McCreight and her supporters on how propa sistas should protest fundamentalist authoritarian stupidity- and of course, it doesn’t have anything to do with a whipping out of baps, ’cause you know, boys like that sort of thing.

If a girl wants to be ‘immodest’ for whatever reason she chooses and some ‘opinion leader’ attempts to instruct her on the earth-shaking consequences of her actions, does the motivation or gender of the oppressor make any difference?

No matter how you slice it, it’s still baloney.

In retort, skeptical, atheist, feminist bewbs with a sense of humour.

Did the earth move for you?

-weez

Christians have been making excuses for child rape by clergy for the last 2000 years.

When agents of the catholic church are caught raping children, the church frequently do their level best to shield offenders from prosecution. The current pope, Joseph Ratzinger, has been shown to have had first-hand involvement in protecting priests from being held legally accountable for child rape.

Apologists for catholic child rape like Piers Akerman and Miranda Devine attack those who want to see prosecutions for covering up these crimes, like Dawkins and Hitchens, as if their motivations have any bearing at all upon the facts of a case of child rape. Akerman and Devine shoot the messengers and identify the church as the ‘last great moral authority.’ If the catholic church is recognised by anyone as any sort of a ‘moral authority,’ then humanity doesn’t need any ‘moral authorities.’

All the while, catholics proffer alibi after alibi for exactly why those in positions of pastoral responsiblity rape children- and expect the public at large to give a free pass to the poor, put-upon clerics. It’s a Jewish conspiracy. It’s homosexuals. It’s pornography on TV and on the internet. In any fair and reasonable court of law, these lame excuses would not absolve a suspected child rapist without a clerical collar and as such certainly should not absolve a suspect who does happen to wear one.

In-house church sanctions against child raping priests and their protectors are not adequate punishment. Child rapists belong in prison, for a very long time, as do their apologists and co-conspirators.

Arrest the pope. Now.

-weez

Wow, Randi’s looking much healthier!

Looking forward to seeing Randi speak at TAM Australia 2010 in Sydney. Details on the Australian Skeptics’ website.

-weez

MOAR: Dr Rachael Dunlop on homeopathy in The Punch

The Australian Constitution has a church and state separation specification:

Chapter V, Section 116 – Commonwealth not to legislate in respect of religion

The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.

Religious education in Australian public schools unquestionably constitutes an ‘imposition of a religious observance,’ but state governments have regardless long mandated religious education classes.

The NSW Government under former premier Nathan Rees made a baby-step forward in removing this imposition by introducing a trial of secular ethics classes in public schools- and it got the religion industry running scared:

THE Anglican Archbishop of Sydney [Peter Jensen] has privately lobbied the Premier, Kristina Keneally, against the permanent introduction of secular ethics classes in public schools, saying they would jeopardise the future of religious education.

Jensen’s right- but religious education has no place in Australian public schools, at least not beyond curricula which describes the notion that religions are indeed practised by certain people in Australia. Unfortunately, public school RE classes treat religion as factual and Christianity as being the ‘right’ religion.

Archbishop Peter Jensen said Ms Keneally had promised the Anglican Church would have input into the trial, which would be subject to an independent review.

If the self-professed Catholic Keneally indeed made this promise, it is demonstrative of a deep conflict of interest. It would be wholly inappropriate to allow a religion to vet secular ethics classes, just as inappropriate as permitting Sydney Atheists to have input into scripture classes.

It’s time for religion to get out of public schools and for government to stop pouring public money into support of religious schools. There’s a place for religions in Australia- that’s in churches, synagogues, mosques, etc.

Public schools are where children should learn facts. Promotion of superstition should be relegated to the superfaerie fan clubs.

-weez

hat tip to @podblack, @drunkenmadman & @happysinger

Teabaggers. Teabonics. Domestic terrorism.

I left the US in 1996- not a moment too soon, it seems.

-weez

MOAR: Mark Fiore: Learn to speak teabag.

No, Tanya, neither local filtering and mandatory ISP level censorship will stop traffic in child porn. The ALP’s censorship plan is identical to putting a two inch plug in a fifty foot pipe. The only effect will be slowing already pathetic internet speeds and pissing off a lot of voters.

-weez

The SMH covers Senator Conroy once again footbulleting.

Conroy is still suffering under the delusions that there’s a problem to address and that his censorship plan will in any way affect what people view on the ‘net. 17 years of uncensored public internet access in Australia has not caused society to implode. Proxies, onion router apps and VPNs will render Rudd/Conroy’s censorship system completely moot, as anyone who wishes to circumvent the censorship will do so.

The good Senator dribbled:

“There are some who want to argue that on the internet, people should be able to publish anything they like – regardless of whether it contravenes laws in the off-line world.”

As regards equality between internet and old media censorship, Conroy’s right. The Classification Board et al. should be abolished immediately to bring old media regulation in line with the more enlightened policy of unfettered speech and access on the present internet.

-weez

Here’s a whole post devoted to one link.

We Didn’t Start the Fire

It’s that good and that important to read.

Big ups to Sunshine Coast Atheists for this well-researched and referenced bit.

Dear Kevin Rudd- you don’t govern a nation of christians. To use an old ALP slogan, It’s Time… to get religion out of politics.

You can start by taxing churches and requiring that their books are just as open to scrutiny as any other public company’s.

-weez

Anyone else seeing the pattern here?

-weez