If thou gazest long into the Pit, the Pit will also gaze into thee

There's a comment in one of the responses (from 'Ruth', on http://blog.chrisworfolk.com/2012/07/11/sisterhood-of-the-oppressed/) that sums up a bit of what I think Kirby is getting wrong: The problem with Paula Kirby’s rant is that although she claims to be in favour of empowering women, she is o...

Saying "I'm not calling you a nazi... but you're a nazi" She didn't call anyone a Nazi, she called them Feminazis, a BIG distinction. It is a commonly accepted thing to append nazi to the end of the word and it is understood that it means fanatical and authoritarian. Was Seinfeld accusing anyone of...

@Caede: FTB is guilty, Paula Kirby is guilty, many here are guilty. We aren't fighting the fights we should be fighting, we're fighting amongst each other because of ego and personality getting in the way. A lot of times, I think people are fighting their own opinions. Caede, I appreciate that you a...

rayshul: If there's one positive takeaway I have from all this, it's that the FtBers have made me a lot less critical of religion. Religion, or the religious? I'm certainly as critical of religion as I ever was. It's possible to be irreverent without malice and recent events have woken me up to how ...

@Caede: There's a reason I posted here instead of on a FtB... and honestly, I lean more towards supporting their underlying views than some of the views I've seen expressed outside or here, but I really don't believe that FtB could be considered an open forum for discussion. I do appreciate this 'sl...

This is actually old news. It's also essential reading if you are under the impression that Boss Baboon is being unfairly treated. If you haven't read about the Anthony Navarro affair, read about it here: http://saltydroid.info/pz-myers-gasbag-bigotry/ [url]feed://saltydroid.info/category/pz-myers/f...

More PZ bashing: http://secularhumanist.blogspot.com/2012/04/general-myers-and-his-endless-war-on.html Pz Quote from above article: I have a different metaphor for us, my brothers and sisters in atheism. We are not sheep; there are no shepherds here. I look out from this stage and I see 4000 pairs o...

Franc:

Science2.0 has another good chuckle at baboon central -

http://www.science20.com/alpha_meme/fre ... aden-91735

He's having a dig at everyone.

Apologies for being vague in my earlier post about the details of the CoffeeLovingSkeptic episode. The details are incidental as the PZedly defence strategy was what I wanted to emphasize. You will find it difficult, if not impossible to get the filth flingers to admit to their faults. The religious...

A banned Pharyngula commenter documents his experience: https://sites.google.com/site/pzmyersisaliar/ My impression of Myers a year ago was of an honest, slightly naive man with a blind spot. Now I think that he is a either stupendously arrogant, intensely defensive and possessed of Zero self-aware...

Dilurk said: what matters to me is RW abused her position to call out verbally another woman without talking with her first. I find that inexcusable. That , the way she makes everything about her pet subject without bothering to provide any real evidence of it's urgency and, most importantly, the ov...

David Byron wrote that? Interesting insight, which acts as a reminder to me to not to let my perceptions of people stop me from listening to what they have to say. DB had some odd and patronising views about women as far as I was concerned. In the end I tended to skip over his posts. In fact, I thin...

There being alternative dictionary defs, thats a bit hard to answer. I like to think of it as applying the scientific method and regarding any beliefs as provisional. It irritates me that people judge the 'soft sciences' as inferior, or even non-scientific. The scientific method involves taking the ...

Everyman said: Aha! This is what is so brilliant about the whole mess. Of course they are correct in that the idea of social privilege is valid. The crux of the problem is they can't see their own. It probably doesn't even occur to most of them to look. Privilege seems to very often be used as an ar...

@Everyman: Personally, I think that the concept of privilege is a valid one. What is wrong with acknowledging that a position of relative advantage can blind one to the experience of the less privileged? One can see this 'privileged' attitude amongst some wealthy whites in post apartheid South Afric...

So that's why he's not around. The guy is Jeckyl and Hyde. When he's on song he focuses like a laser and lays down a solid chain of logic that's quite impressive. The he suddenly goes off on one and he won't be talked down. My 2 cents, 5 minutes would be fine as long as there is a recoverable audit ...

Dilurk: I rather think most of the sound and fury is due to misunderstandings due to text Doubt that. They have been informed often enough what the Slimers mean, and don't mean, by the words they find objectionable. What would reconciliation mean anyway? Would you become active on their blogs? The p...

@Lsuoma: Sorry about your friend. I remember that whole period very well as I was working at Guy's & St Thomas Hospital at the time. Whole hospital went into lockdown. I think we might have got more casualties after that nutter blew up the gay bar, though. Closest I've ever been was when my window g...

Dangerously close to the 50 mark (and not happy about it), now returned to the southern tip of Africa after a 20 year stint in YewKay. Physics/Computer Science grad wot remembers feck all about physics, or maths for that matter. Basic trigonometry would stump me. Not a shining star on the work front...

On reflection, that is some serious guilt he's carrying. Could make him susceptible to being put into an emotional tailspin which leaves him a bit insecure and overly contrite. He does seem to have been affected by the Pit language. Some people are just conservative, which is not a huge sin, as long...

Why get complicated? Maybe it's just what it looks like on the surface. New blogger throws in with FTB and finds there's a war going on, thinks he'll stay out of it and make his own peace with the other side. Big Cheese whispers something in his ear about how those other guys have viciously attacked...