Adam Lee has a nice summary of the Women in Secularism conference. However, he does reveal that we Ftbullied him into talking the picture below, which is a no-no. You were told not to tattle, Adam Lee. The next time we meet, expect a pantsing, or even a swirlie. Also, put your lunch money in an envelope and mail it to me right now. Oh, and look — even more ftbullying! We’re all holding signs abusing the theocratic governments that jail atheist bloggers.

The normalization of rape continues apace. Three teenagers face sex assault charges after they raped a 12-year-old girl at gunpoint and posted a video of the December attacks on Facebook, prosecutors said. Scandale Fritz, 16, Kenneth Brown, 15, and Justin Applewhite, 16, were all ordered held in lieu of $900,000 bail in a hearing today before Criminal Court Judge James Brown, said Cook County state’s attorney spokeswoman Tandra Simonton. The three were charged as adults. That’s not just dumb, it’s a problem of attitude: now raping a 12 year old girl is something so amusing, something to be proud of, to the point where rapists are sharing videos of their criminal attacks on facebook. I’m curious to know if they were surprised when police officers showed up at their door, and I’d love to know what kind of excuses they offered.

mediabistro.com
Atheist group says The Daily Caller is the 'most unethical news publication'
Daily Caller
In a press release, the coalition quotes Bedford as saying in an email sent May 3: “I'm not sure what y'all believe in beyond annoying America, but if it's what most atheists believe, I hope it comes true: I hope you live a long, happy life surrounded ...
Daily Caller Called 'Most Unethical' Publication After Editor Sends 'Dick Pic'mediabistro.com

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Damned monkeys. Stop gawking, put the cell phone away, and flee. We get these things up here in Minnesota, too, and one thing you will not get from me is a video showing it off. I’ll be in the basement, hiding under a mattress.

Sikivu Hutchinson has a new book, Godless Americana: Race and Religious Rebels, and she was recently interviewed about it. What’s the most important take-home message for readers? That humanism can be culturally relevant to communities of color. Traditional mainstream white-dominated freethought/atheist/humanist models don’t offer an adequate basis for social justice. They don’t address the intersection of women’s rights, civil rights, anti-racism, heterosexism, the racial wealth gap, and educational apartheid. … So while there are numerous grassroots atheist groups spearheading their own projects, the movement as a whole continues to be publicly defined by a handful of superstars and their limited vision. The absence of historical and sociological context for atheist politics, and its disconnection from social justice activism, will keep it in the lily-white one-percent column. I have no patience for single-issue white male atheists who inveigh against the backwardness of organized religion as the fount of all evil and then have the luxury to retreat into their segregated ivory towers, insulated conferences, and highly-paid seminar bubbles. In Godless Americana I address the lived experiences of some of the most religious communities on the planet in one of the richest nations on the planet. I probe the sociological context for faith traditions and hyper-religiosity in American communities of color. I have this grand, optimistic vision of humanity’s future, and escaping the dead-end lies of religion is part of it. But mostly what I see are people — all people — given the security and knowledge to live lives with true meaning, where they can grow and learn and engage in productive struggle, fighting to make the world a better place with every generation. I have my causes and my biases, but I don’t see how we can achieve that goal by having the causes and biases of a narrow subset imposed on the whole;...
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Washington Times
Georgia orders Bibles back in park cabins; atheist mulls next move
Washington Times
Nathan Deal has ordered that state-run lodges bring back Bibles they had just banned — the latest in a constitutional religion question that surfaced via a complaint from one atheist. The dispute started when atheist Ed Buckner took his family on ...
Atheist group sending books to Georgia state parksAtlanta Journal Constitution (blog)
Atheist Books To Be Placed Next To Bibles In Georgia Parks In Response To ...Huffington Post
Atheist group to give Ga. an atheist book for every Bible in state parksDaily Caller
Access North Georgia -Christian Post
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The Atheist delusion (The up rise of Barcode Man)
News24
The Tesla turbine is a bladeless centripetal flow turbine patented by Nikola Tesla in 1913. It is referred to as a bladeless turbine because it uses the boundary layer effect and not a fluid impinging upon the blades as in a conventional turbine. The ...

Last year, the first statewide PA atheist/humanist conference was held in Harrisburg. This year, the conference will be held in Philadelphia and will kick off with an anti-superstition party and feature a long list of guests and a...

University Will Investigate Christian Professor's Intelligent Design Class ...
TheBlaze.com
Despite having negative comments to throw Hedin's way (he called him a “dingbat professor”), PZ Myers, a biologist at the University of Minnesota who is also an atheist, defended the professor's right to tout and explore unpopular ideas in the classroom.
Ball State investigating intelligent design classWorld Magazine

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It’s the lovely Pink Dragon millipede — it’s bright enough to belong in the girls’ aisle at the toy store. It also squirts cyanide at you if you annoy it.

Hey, we added a couple of male bloggers here…I thought we were supposed to be man-hatin’ banshee feminists? It’s surprising but true, though, that some people with a Y chromosome and a penis can actually care about social justice. Say howdy to Ally Fogg and our very newest addition, Tauriq Moosa, who helpfully explains how to pronounce his name in his first post.

Moore, Oklahoma has been completely flattened by a tornado. Homes and businesses have been destroyed, but also a couple of schools and a hospital.

And here’s a time-lapse video of this monster ripping through the countryside.

Action News 5 – Memphis, Tennessee

What can we do? I mentioned it to Foundation Beyond Belief — go to the “Crisis Response” link and tell them you want to contribute to the relief efforts. If enough of us do that, they’ll set something up to take your godless donations and send them to where they’re most needed. And then send them money!

Zingularity also has a post on the catastrophe.

Foundation Beyond Belief now has a crisis response page. You can make charitable donations there.

The death toll is at 51 and rising, with at least 20 dead children.

Atheists Place Atheist Texts at State Campgrounds - Politix - Topix
Politix
A controversy over Bibles provided in Georgia state parks has led an atheist group to place atheist texts in state campgrounds. American Atheists is sending the Georgia Department of Natural Resources "enough popular atheist books to place one in every ...

Daily Caller
Atheist group to give Ga. an atheist book for every Bible in state parks
Daily Caller
The group said it intends to provide the Georgia Department of Natural Resources with literature like ”Why I Am Not A Muslim” by Ibn Warraq; “Why I Am An Atheist” by Madalyn Murray O'Hair; “god is not Great” by Christopher Hitchens; and “The God ...

Should Atheist Literature Join Bibles in State Park Cabins?
Patch.com
American Atheists announced Friday that it will send the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (GADNR) enough popular atheist books to place one in every state park cabin in the state. The atheist books will be placed alongside Gideon Bibles already ...

Atheist group says it will donate books to Ga. parks after governor allows ...
Washington Post
“We appreciate the governor's invitation to place atheist books in the cabins and look forward to providing visitors with the opportunity to learn more about atheism when they visit Georgia's beautiful state parks,” American Atheists Managing Director ...

Atheist group plans to send materials to Ga. parks
Access North Georgia
The move comes after an admitted atheist complained to state parks officials when he found a Bible, placed by the Gideons, in his cabin at Amicalola State Park in Dawson County. After the complaint, all Bibles were removed, but last week, Governor ...

Or we could be in big trouble. The antis of Ireland have a whole arsenal of secret weapons in the battle to keep women pregnant that I haven’t seen deployed here — they have access to Catholic magic. I don’t think we’d be able to resist if they started cruising our country with magic paintings, magic garments (guaranteeing immunity from hellfire!), and magic faces.

No word yet on whether they have any magic briar patches.

Photograph by Huajin Sun. Grus japonensis – red-crowned crane. This photograph, which adorns the dust jacket of The World’s Rarest Birds, earned second prize in the “endangered or data-deficient” category of a worldwide photo contest. I will review the book briefly, below the fold. Note added May 21, 11:00 a.m., MDT: You may see the contest winners here and the winners of a second contest here.... Matt Young http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung

Washington Times
Atheist Books To Be Placed Next To Bibles In Georgia Parks In Response To ...
Huffington Post
"We appreciate the governor's invitation to place atheist books in the cabins and look forward to providing visitors with the opportunity to learn more about atheism when they visit Georgia's beautiful state parks," American Atheists Managing Director ...
Georgia orders Bibles back in park cabins; atheist mulls next moveWashington Times
Atheist group sending books to Georgia state parksAtlanta Journal Constitution (blog)
Deal On Atheist Books At State ParksGPB
WRCB-TV -Patch.com
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