An open letter to Perth Atheists

I appreciate that Perth Atheists Meetup (a wonderful development, by the way) hasn’t been around for very long, and that your organisation’s website is but an adjunct. But as an atheist from Perth, though not a Perth Atheist, and currently resident in Japan, I must say I’m a little disappointed in the lack of Perth-related atheist and religion-related news content.

WA is the state in which, a few short years ago, the Opposition party ran for election on a platform of increasing the age of consent for homosexual sex from 16 to 18; it is also the state in which, only last year, two of the state’s highest-profile religious leaders came out in support of ID being taught in schools. There is no shortage of religious nuttery there. Even PerthNow has beaten us both to the punch with a story on the positive correlation between atheism and intelligence. And come on, guys: I’m half way around the world, and I can’t be the only one (aside from ex-members, of course) blogging on the Bethel Covenant Community scandal, can I?

Please, pretty please, with sugar on top: it would be great to open up your link and find, in place of a Google News aggregator, some good local material.

Akismet . . . under the hood

I’m considering turning this into a play or an opera.

· Jamie Holts | jamie@bestnewspolitics.com | bestnewspolitics.com | IP: 75.125.60.13A friend of mine just emailed me one of your articles from a while back. I read that one a few more. Really enjoy your blog. Thanks

Not Spam — Jun 5, 6:04 PM — [ View Post ]

· Jamie Holts | jamie@bestnewspolitics.com | bestnewspolitics.com | IP: 75.125.60.13

I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.

Not Spam — Jun 5, 6:08 PM — [ View Post ]

Does WordPress.com understand the meaning of “irony?”

If so, why did it take seriously the claim that the (former) title of this post was defamatory?

Of course I wasn’t claiming that Council Nedd molests children, beats his wife or manages to perform both activities simultaneously. I was simply trying to make a point about the slanderous and presumptious nature of the question his organization sees fit to plaster on billboards across the US: “Why Do Atheists Hate America?” And I simply can’t believe that I have to spell this out.

Replace the word “Atheists” with “Gays” or “Blacks” or “Jews,” and anyone with the barest semblance of intelligence ought to be able to identify the problems with Nedd’s billboard, <i>the least of which</i> being that it falls into the “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?” category of loaded questions.

Is this a Hanlon’s Razor issue? It takes a particularly potent brand of stupid not to be able to distinguish between a personal attack on Nedd and an ironic attack on the content of his anti-atheist billboard. On the other hand, perhaps the gang at In God We Trust is sufficiently thin-skinned to do what they can in order to stifle any criticism of the organisation’s activities, even as they feel justified in shouting their bigotry from the rooftops.

In any case, I altered the title of the post in accordance with the wishes of WordPress, even though the suggestion that the original title was defamatory (given the content of the post) is just ludicrous. Hopefully that will be that.

[OT: I’ve added a link to Expelled Exposed in the sidebar.]

Remember Sammy Jankis?

That’s Sammy Jankis of Smogblot fame. He has a new blog now, and like many others has opted to migrate from Blogger to WordPress. Which means its time for me to pose the following question to my readers, especially if you have converted from Blogger to WordPress:

Can you name at least five advantages WordPress has over Blogger?

P.S. There has been no word on if/when SuperSimmo plans to fire up his new blog.