There is a lot of loss around. And I’m not just referring to people mourning the loss of a loved person. When someone is bereaved you would expect the mourning. It is natural and understandable. But apart from the loss of human beings, there are many other kinds of losses, and many people in [...]
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Here’s something. Imagine you live in a community where you are expected to pay into a fund that is used to meet various needs in the community - the upkeep of roads, salaries for nurses and teachers, and community hospitality, for example. Then it transpires that you are about to receive a visit from a [...]
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There is a sick theme running through all of this - or at least a clear attempt to involve some form of mental illness, and an attempt to bring in the people in white coats - well, at least psychologists if not psychiatrists.
Hey, I really, really don’t want to jump on the bandwagon and pour [...]
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Posted in Health, Human Rights, Morality, Science on Dec 9th, 2009
The Merseyside Skeptics Society have produced the following open letter which I re-publish below in full:
An Open Letter to Alliance Boots
The Boots brand is synonymous with health care in the United Kingdom. Your website speaks proudly about your role as a health care provider and your commitment to deliver exceptional patient care. For many people, [...]
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Local vicars in Winscombe and Sandford in Somerset have been pressing to have prayers reinstated at the beginning of Parish Council meetings, a month after they were dropped.
The reason why they were dropped is not that the Parish Council wished to stop individuals talking to their imaginary friends in the privacy of their own homes, [...]
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Press Release from the One Law for All Campaign
One Law for All campaign is organising a rally on Saturday 21 November 2009 at 1200pm in London’s Hyde Park. The rally aims to oppose religious laws in Britain and elsewhere, show solidarity with people living under and resisting Sharia, and to defend universal rights and secularism.
Simultaneous [...]
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As David Aaronovitch remarked in the Times:
If polo is the most expensive sport in which to participate, then archbishop-baiting must be the cheapest. You don’t even need your own archbishop, but can share one with millions of others. No saddle is required, only a pen. The man in the biretta simply has to offer an [...]
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Despite what the (American) religious right may teach, just saying “No” to yourself doesn’t always work.
Many of us already knew that, but it’s now official. The truth is out at last – abstinence-only programmes make the situation worse. To the surprise of few, it has recently emerged that George W. Bush’s “abstinence only” [...]
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I know. It’s easy for me. I’m a man. I don’t have to wear the things. My gender is the one that has largely tried to dictate over the centuries how women should dress. I write what I am about to write with appropriate trepidation and guilt.
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