For up to the moment information the three best ways to keep yourself in the loop are all via social networking methods.

• Follow @TAMAustralia on Twitter.
• Follow the #TAMOz hashtag on Twitter.
• Like the TAM Australia MyFace page.
• Skepticator.

I could repeat some of the details here to try and drum up support, but personally I think it’s easier if you just go to the official website.  I for one cannot wait.  Such big names from overseas I would not have had any way to see or meet beforehand, coming to my fair little town.  To quote The Cat from Red Dwarf “I’m so excited, all six of my nipples are tingling!”.

It’s not always females who are being given the short end of the straw, though.  Men too can suffer from sexism.  I will say before I get any further that women do suffer the massive brunt of it.  The point of this article isn’t to cry persecution, “woe is me” or to trivialise sexism against women in any way shape or form.  It most definitely is a horrible thing that still requires a LOT of work to rectify in our society.  I simply aim to raise awareness that there is also sexism against men.

The case in point and inspiration for this article is something that appeared in yesterday’s Courier Mail.  A female Physical Education teacher received her sentence after being accused of grooming some year 12 students in to a sexual relationship with her.  She has been reported as watching sexually explicit DVD’s in a classroom while lying under a blanket, providing fake ID’s and taking a girl to nightclubs.

This appears to have been an internal investigation by the Australian Rugby Union, with the results of … her being disqualified as a teacher and restricted to only coaching 18+ year olds.  She can reapply as a teacher after 5 years, though.

Now, if she was a male teacher grooming students (male or female) in similar ways, not only would the teacher be struck off for life (rather than a mere 5 years), there would also be numerous civil and criminal charges with the male teacher facing massive fines, most-likely gaol, and definitely a horde of pedophilia accusations.  They would be completely shamed, have to quietly move interstate just to set up a new life away from these accusations and vitriol.

This female teacher on the other hand, is still being allowed to play Rugby Union and coach teams as long as the students are 18 or older.

This isn’t the only case of sexism against men.  I have heard countless anecdotes from male parents who are scared to take their own child shopping or to the park anymore without an escort from their wife’s or a female friend due to fear of pedophilia accusations.  Numerous confrontations where police were called by other overly paranoid parents seeing a single male with a child, despite nothing being out of the ordinary nor any hint of poor treatment to the child.

As I said before, women do suffer from sexism to a significantly greater degree than men do.  The degree to which men suffer from it is almost negligible, but it’s still out there.  Sexism is discrimination based on sex, whether that sex is female or male, or whether that discrimination is negative (eg objectifying) or positive (eg chivalry).

Now thanks to an earlier investigation by the ABC TV show 4Corners, the Australian Fair Work Ombudsman has opened up an investigation in to the cult to look at these claims.  Details of the investigation come from Lateline in the video after the cut.

As stated, the Ombudsman has looked at them before.  I don’t see how they’ll be able to do anything other than look at staged work with specifically selected people.  I am under the impression they do not have the power or the resources to do surprise inspections so they’ll be giving the Cult plenty of warning prior to their visits, and only looking at documentation requested rather than seized.  As with many regulatory bodies in Australia, I fear there will be little to nothing they can do simply due to lack of resources.

The Cult of Scientology will be able to pull the wool over the ombudsman’s eyes and hide behind the contracts their million year contracts that staff are forced to sign.  These contracts are a joke, but if people are suckered in they don’t really care, they’re fooled and manipulated enough to not care about the legalese which the Cult can then hide behind.  They use very heavy pressure tactics to make people submissive and not complain or stand up for their rights.

The more people are made aware of what really goes on behind the Cult of Scientology the better.  Please, let people know.  Pass the message on.

Thanks yet again to Steve Cannane and Lateline for this report.

When Meryl first announced her talk in Perth at the Uniting Church in The City, many people from the StopAVN group contacted them to let them know the reality behind the AVN, what they really stood for and would really be talking about.  UCiTC were shocked, and decided in the end to cancel the booking.

The AVN then looked around and lined up a new venue, the State Library of Western Australia.  They told Meryl they often have controversial groups talk, so would not cancel.  True to their word, once contacted by StopAVN members they responded in a similar way and allowed the talk to continue. 

StopAVN members then started contacting politicians, media, and other people higher up the State Library food chain complaining to the Minster for Health and then to the Minister for Arts (whose portfolio covers the venue) and asking for this talk to be stopped.  In my humble opinion, this was going too far.  This is the reason why I am also glad the talk is going ahead.

Ewelyn Beatrice Hall is often quoted as saying…

“I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.

The State Library’s stance sounds very much like it’s based in this statement.  They are willing to give anyone and everyone a location to voice their words whether they agree or not with the speaker.  They made the choice to make this their policy and they are sticking with it.  This is not something to scoff at, it’s something they should be proud of.

In going up the food chain to the Health and Arts Ministers asking for the talk to be stopped, the StopAVN members took things too far.  Alerting the venue to the truth behind what the AVN stand for, their true goals, the investigations they’re under is fine.  In fact that’s good, the AVN are full of misinformation and lies, there is no way they would be honest to venues about any of this.  Venues deserve to know the truth and have the right to reject people who wish to use their facilities.

Podblack has gone about things in the right way.  She informed the venues and when it continued she decided to go out there, observe the misinformation Meryl is giving and has some fliers that she may or may not give out depending on who she feels.  She also created a website to counter the AVN’s false claims and misinformation so that people can realise the facts.

Podblack as per usual has done the honourable and correct thing throughout this.  My hat goes off to her.

Also as I said yesterday, you cannot give information and misinformation on equal platters and ask people to decide for themselves.  That’s just unproductive and dangerous as it gives people the false impression that the misinformation is justified and supported.  So, to counter the misinformation and blatant lies by the AVN in tomorrow’s seminar, a website has been launched specifically to correct the AVN’s incorrect claims.

I am quite confident saying blatant lies, as the AVN have been corrected numerous times in person, at antivaxxers.com, on facebook and on their own mailing lists yet they still give out their misinformation.

So please, if you want information with any semblance of accuracy, stay as far away from the AVN as you can.  They misinform, they lie, and they’re just plain wrong.  Please, check out some credible sources for your information such as the sites listed below.

http://vaccinationfacts.wordpress.com/
http://www.antivaxxers.com/
http://antiantivax.flurf.net/
http://cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/6mishome.htm
http://sciencebasedmedicine.org/reference/vaccines-and-autism/

Personally, I find this whole quit facebook day things to be hilarious.  To me it simply shows peoples ignorance.

Every other month there’s stories in the news of people getting fired or rejected for jobs due to information they put on the ‘net, Facebook, Myspace etc.

Social networking sites like Facebook have always screamed to me as an identity thieves wet dream.  They not only encourage, but beg, plead and almost force you to provide personal information that can be viewed publicly.  Facebook for example has a policy of real names only.  Stickam asks you to fill out profile information, with a LOT of very personal questions.  It has a bar down the bottom saying “You’ve only filled out X percent – more more now!!!” and annoys you every time you log in.  I don’t think that bar ever got above 5% for me despite putting at least something in to half the boxes.

These people have simply shown little to no regard for their own privacy, it’s suddenly slapped them in the face how ignorant and stupid they have been with this information.  They were shocked and are now looking for someone else to blame for their own stupidity.  They’re screaming out to the world “I AM QUITTING BECAUSE I’M SMART ABOUT PRIVACY! WATCH ME DO IT NOW!” on twitter, myspace, etc etc.  All I hear is “I WAS A MORON AND CLUELESSLY GAVE AWAY MY IDENTITY!!!“.

Show some brains when you’re online.  It doesn’t require much of a clue really.  If a stranger walked up to you in the street and asked for your full name, would you give it?  If not, then don’t give it to websites.  Same goes for your phone number, date of birth, location, likes, dislikes etc.  Only ever give out the information you’d give to a random stranger on the street.  Use a pseudonym or false information for everything else.  Those who know you in real life will know the real information about you, that’s all that matters.

If you’re thinking about quitting, stop for a few moments.  Would you be happy using this site if it had no personal information to give away on you?  If so, just remove that information and keep going.

Me personally, I won’t be quitting.  I have recently untagged myself from all photos.  I already use my pseudonym for facebook and I don’t like it and my real name being used together.  Sure lots of people know both, but the vast majority who do know both know me in real life as well as online.  That was the only data on myself I had to remove.  I also got rid of all the books/movies/etc from my profile, but that was only because recent changes made anything listed there start spamming my wall which annoyed me.  I was happy to keep that information in my profile if it wasn’t for the wall spam.

I have at least one friend who has left Facebook at about this time, but her main reasons for doing so are separate to the privacy thing.  I’m ok with that.  It’s not her or those like her that I’m ranting and raving about here.

If you’re still going to leave facebook, make sure it’s for the right reasons.  Not just because you yourself were ignorant.

On a positive note, the mythology of creationism hasn’t found its way in to science classes as it has in numerous states in America, but the fact it found its way in at all is still bad.  In Queensland it will be taught in History class under the subject of “controversial issues”.

Queensland History Teachers’ Association head Kay Bishop said the curriculum asked students to develop their historical skills in an “investigation of a controversial issue” such as “human origins (eg, Darwin’s theory of evolution and its critics”).

What creationism/evolution has to do with history I honestly don’t know. If the topic was creation mythos vs archaeology I could understand, but evolution?  They may as well be teaching it in math class for all the relevance it has.  This reads as though it is directly out of The Discovery Institutes strategy guide.

Associated Christian Schools executive officer Lynne Doneley welcomed the draft curriculum, saying it cemented the position of a faith-based approach to teaching.

It’s a shame it does nothing to support a reality-based approach.  Teaching fiction/mythology as reality is damaging.  It’s that simple.  This is abhorrent and needs to be stopped.

“We talk to students from a faith science basis, but we’re not biased in the delivery of curriculum,” Mrs Doneley said. “We say, ‘This is where we’re coming from’ but allow students to make up their own minds.”

“make up their own minds” is a favourite line of the anti-reality conspiracy theorists.  It’s used repeatedly by creationists, republican history revisionists, anti-vaxxers, alt-medders.  You name it, if it’s a group that doesn’t have facts, evidence and science to back up their claims they’ll come in with “just teach/inform both and let the students/mothers/people make up their own minds”.

I’m sorry, but it doesn’t work that way.  The point of schools is to inform kids, not misinform them.  Providing someone with information and misinformation with both being given equal footing then letting them make up their own minds doesn’t help anybody.

To steal a line from Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer …

Their “justification” for this (and I use the term lightly, there is no justification for such horrific non-consensual barbarism) is that it will minimise back-yard amateur illegal procedures which leaves girls scarred for life.

Not that this will be any better.  It’s a horrific thing to do to young girls.  It often leaves women without the ability to feel sexual pleasure and is just another way to demean and put them down further.  Along with the burka and other such bullshit this is just segregation and discrimination.  It’s bigoted sexism that should have been wiped out in the west decades ago, rather than being supported.

Rather than going backwards as a society to appease these people, we need to bring them up to current societal moralistic levels.

“Reasons given by practising populations include religion, despite the Koran not requiring it, and that it can help maintain cleanliness and health.”

… just like there’s dozens of 1600 year old scriptures containing depictions of Mohammed, and drawing him seemed to be fine and not raise any ire until some people decided to work up the muslim community with the “Danish” cartoons.  Just like the lines quoted from the bible against homosexuality and abortion usually have very little to do with either, or when put in context of the surrounding sentence (let alone lines, paragraphs and story) say the exact opposite.

I am very VERY angry that this is even being considered, most of what you see here has been re-written about 3 times as I try to refrain from having every second word being a curse.

Edit: Thanks to Podblack we have word that this is not true.  It’s typical bad reporting stating the opposite of the truth, all stemming from one poor misquote.

The reasons they’re using to try and stop it are their completely unfounded fears, and completely fictitious invisible friends. 

“You’ve got to be very careful when you willy-nilly send something into the environment and you can’t control its spread.” “And you can’t control a bacteria spread once you release it.”

said Ann Simpsons from UTS.

Someone’s watched one too many zombie movies.  That’s the plot device for how the zombies form in numerous movies, as an escaped man-made bacteria/virus.  Eep!

Other anonymous critics who are too scared to even associate their names with it invoked their favourite invisible friend in the sky as well, claiming Venter is playing God.

More anonymous critics who again were even more scared to even associate their names with their hysterical and unfounded claims made calls that it could be used for bio-terrorism.  What, like all the terrorists worldwide using bio-warfare now, like the chemical weapons that were being produced which led up to the second Iraq War?  Oh wait, there were none! How silly of me!

This is all nothing more than hysterics.  These people don’t seem to have any idea of the science behind it, they’re just using their own paranoia and ignorance to scream, shout, get public opinion behind them and kill off science before it has a chance to show its worth.  This kind of things greatly pisses me off and I really hope this work can survive through it.

“The technology is not for sale, the cells are not for sale,” “We are trying to use this technology to advance vaccine protection, we are trying to use it to advance the basic understanding of cellular life.”

Venter told the BBC

Here’s my drawing of Mohammed, it’s the one I drew for the South Park episode.

Joe Wellington then created a facebook page with quickly grew to have a few thousand followers.  By this stage Molly started realising the implications of what this could mean.  It was originally intended to just be a one-off cartoon, to give people a laugh and point out the importance of free speech.  She decided to disassociate herself from it as it had grown out of control.

Joe Wellington then decided to do the same thing due to the crude nature of many of the images being uploaded and the anger being spouted in the expected facebook protest groups.  His page has since disappeared from facebook.  So the two people who inspired Everybody Draw Mohammed Day have both disassociated themselves from it, but it has still gone ahead.

So go through all the images, and create your own even if it’s after the day.  The more the merrier I say.  If you need some inspiration you can visit the Wikipedia page, Facebook event, Blogspot page, or better yet you can check out Skepticator’s collation of it all.