How not to do pro-choice

What is it with Student Unions? Even when they do something right, they manage to get something badly wrong at the same time. Following a referendum in which 3300 students cast their votes – out of total student body of a little over 23,000, the University College London […]

Holocaust Memorial Day – Bronowski at Auschwitz

Every year I give some thought to the question of how best to mark Holocaust Memorial Day… …and every year I come back to same thing, this video of Jacob Bronowski at Auschwitz, from the landmark BBC series ‘The Ascent of Man’. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0PDGZKGAWs[/youtube] No more need be said. […]

Pwned again – LSESU wrong on own rules (updated)

I wouldn’t normally pull a comment out into an individual post but on this occasion the issue, though simple, is important enough to warrant giving it a high degree of prominence. In reponse to my observations on the LSE Student Union’s failure to operate within the terms of […]

More Scumbaggery at the LSE Student Union.

If further evidence that LSE’s Student Union is currently a hive of scumbaggery were needed, their latest wizard wheeze is a doozy… In light of recent events there will be two anti-discrimination motions being discussed and debated at an EGM this week, these are: No to racism – […]

Student Union deems Jesus & Mo “Racist”

The recent outbreak of asshattery at a London-based University has proved to be contagious with a second university atheist society at the London School of Economics being ‘instructed’ to remove a Jesus and Mo cartoon from its Facebook page or face disciplinary sanctions from its main Student Union. […]

No One Expects The Islamic Inquisition

I’ve been occupied with other matters which have, to date, meant that I’ve not got around to passing comment on the absurd row over UCL’s Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society posting a Jesus and Mo cartoon on its Facebook page… …until now. If you’ve not caught up with  […]

Democracy, LGBT Rights and Religion

Thaddeus J Wilson poses an interesting problem: But having said that, I was, quite frankly, astounded by the things I read here: “Homosexuals can forget about human rights” – James Nsaba Buturo, former Minister of Ethics and Integrity (!) “I will never initiate or support any attempts to […]

Singer, Infanticide and the importance of doubt

Ordinarily I respond to comments at the Ministry in the usual way, i.e. by way a direct response in the same comments thread. But, every once in a while I get a comment which deserves a somewhat and more considered response, i.e. a separate post and this is […]

Dorries, Humanism and Infanticide

Nadine Dorries’ response to her nomination for this year’s New Humanist Bad Faith Award is – well – classic Dorries: The Humanist magazine are running an online ‘bad faith’ poll and I am apparently in the lead. I am not sure why anyone would admit to being a […]

Intergalactic Bullshit

There are some religious and quasi-religious claims that one can always dismiss as bullshit without even bothering to go to the trouble of investigating the evidence that believers wish to put forward to support them. For example, any claim based on the use of a piece of astronomy […]