{"id":3479,"date":"2009-12-02T11:21:27","date_gmt":"2009-12-02T19:21:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=3479"},"modified":"2009-12-02T11:21:27","modified_gmt":"2009-12-02T19:21:27","slug":"miscellany-december-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/miscellany-december-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Miscellany, December 2"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yes, it&#8217;s true, I&#8217;ve been absent from the site for half a year (unless you count <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/secularright\">Secular Right&#8217;s Twitter account<\/a>) and I&#8217;ll be scarce for yet a while longer because of the book manuscript I need to finish. But there&#8217;s still time to round up some short items from the past month that might otherwise pass without note: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;Few people are motivated by purely secular considerations to become &#8230;better people.&#8221; Really? [<a href=\"http:\/\/prawfsblawg.blogs.com\/prawfsblawg\/2009\/11\/from-letters-to-the-editors-of-mirror-of-justice.html\">PrawfsBlawg<\/a>] <\/li>\n<li>Trail of proposed Uganda death-for-gays law leads back to U.S. [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.boxturtlebulletin.com\/2009\/11\/25\/16913\">Box Turtle Bulletin<\/a>] <\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Why he stopped believing: confessions of a former missionary&#8221; [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.advicegoddess.com\/archives\/2009\/11\/14\/why_he_stopped.html\">Amy Alkon<\/a>] <\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Coma man&#8221; tale: &#8220;CNN and MSNBC duped by \u2018facilitated communication\u2019&#8221; [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.examiner.com\/x-9090-NY-Atheism--Skepticism-Examiner~y2009m11d26-CNN-and-MSNBC-duped-by-facilitated-communication\">Michael Rosch\/Examiner<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/insolence\/2009\/11\/another_contender_for_the_worst_reportin.php\">Orac\/Respectful Insolence<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;War on Christmas&#8221; grievance-collectors really should lighten up [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.popehat.com\/2009\/12\/01\/tis-the-season-to-compile-dossiers-of-politically-incorrect-statements\/\">Ken at Popehat<\/a>] <\/li>\n<li>Successful &#8220;libel-in-fiction&#8221; claim against author of bestselling &#8220;Red Hat Club&#8221; novel included allegations that plaintiff had been depicted as atheist and &#8220;right-wing reactionary&#8221; [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.law.com\/jsp\/article.jsp?id=1202435928762\">Fulton County Daily Report<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/overlawyered.com\/2009\/11\/red-hat-club-author-loses-suit-over-portrayal\/\">Overlawyered<\/a>] <\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Hard Evidence: Seven salient facts about Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan&#8221; [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/id\/2235760\/pagenum\/all\/\">Christopher Hitchens<\/a>] <\/li>\n<li>&#8220;How many Bibles must there be in the jury room to aid in the deliberations?&#8221; Four in this Texas capital case [<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.simplejustice.us\/2009\/11\/10\/cause-the-bible-tells-me-so.aspx?ref=rss\">Scott Greenfield<\/a>] <\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Man sacked for belief in psychics backed by judge&#8221; [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/uk\/home-news\/man-sacked-for-belief-in-psychics-backed-by-judge-but-of-course-he-knew-that-would-happen-1819025.html\">U.K. Independent<\/a>] <\/li>\n<li>Heh: &#8220;Efforts to reach Christ for comment were unsuccessful.&#8221; [<a href=\"http:\/\/content.usatoday.net\/dist\/custom\/gci\/InsidePage.aspx?cId=mansfieldnewsjournal&#038;sParam=32191537.story\">USA Today<\/a>; Alabama woman who changed her name to &#8220;Jesus Christ&#8221;] <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yes, it&#8217;s true, I&#8217;ve been absent from the site for half a year (unless you count Secular Right&#8217;s Twitter account) and I&#8217;ll be scarce for yet a while longer because of the book manuscript I need to finish. But there&#8217;s &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/miscellany-december-2\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3479"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3479"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3483,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3479\/revisions\/3483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}