My Greek-linked contacts tell me that he Golden Dawn (read: Nazi) WordPress website has been taken down, WordPress having been informed by the broader international community (THIS MEANS YOU!!!) about the violation of terms of service. Good for WordPress!

Now, according to the same sources, Golden Dawn has a new blog hosted by Google on Blogger. Time for a new petition!

It is here.

We call on Google to follow the example of WordPress and stop providing a free platform for Golden Dawn’s hate speech and intimidation of journalists by suspending the official Golden Dawn blogs hosted on their platform.

Click through and read the details, and you’ll see that it makes sense and you’ll want to sign it, I’m sure.

There are two items that I’ve posted on Scienceblogs that might be of interest to readers here:

Does the Internet need an HR Department?
Settling Conflicts: Guns and Homeschooling

Interesting discussions are emerging on both threads.

Recording live today on Skeptically Speaking:

This week, we’re looking at some of the ways motherhood changes the brain and the body. Kayt Sukel, author of Dirty Minds: How Our Brains Influence Love, Sex, and Relationships, returns to explain the neurological effects of pregnancy and motherhood. And on the podcast, we’re joined by Dr. Katie Hinde, Director of Harvard’s Comparative Lactation Laboratory, to discuss the biology of lactation and breastfeeding.

We record live with Kayt Sukel on Sunday, May 13 at 6 pm MT. The podcast will be available to download at 9 pm MT on Friday, May 18.

For details go here.

When a young girl put a picture of herself, holding a book she had just gotten as a present, on the social networking site reddit, she was immediately subjected to intense verbal sexual assault by reddit readers who aptly demonstrated how awful it can be when boys and young men are left to say and do what they want without the social control of anyone knowing who they are. When Skepchick founder Rebecca Watson casually tossed out some relationship advice for clueless young men attending conferences they mistook for meat markets, she and anyone perceived as a friend, colleague, or ally of hers were subjected to relentless pounding with misogynistic language and faux threats of sexual violence. These are two relatively spectacular recent (and ongoing) examples of behavior that is widely considered unacceptable in our society. This behavior was probably much more common in the past, in workplaces, schools, and other places where humans gather willingly or not. But over time, most institutional and commercial settings have made rules against harassment and implemented systems to monitor and detect poor behavior of this sort, then deal with it. Human Resources (HR) departments, training programs, and diversity-aware hiring practices have reduced (but certainly not eliminated) this kind of horrible behavior. Our society is changing, and hearing men blurting out overt sexual come-ons, carrying out verbal sexual assaults, or haranguing others who do not subscribe to their particular set of behavioral rules is now rare. Young men still shout obnoxious things from passing cars (I just witnessed an example of that last night at the local grocery store’s parking lot) and there are probably workplaces where bad behavior is still much more common than it should be (dog fighting matches, certain locker rooms, and all male dinner parties in private rooms with certain senators come to mind as possible examples). But for the most part our society has moved beyond times when obnoxious, sexist, and misogynistic behavior is the norm
Continue reading Does the Internet need an HR Department? →

I just put up a post on Minnesota Progressive Project on Chip Cravaack, Minnesota Tea Party guy who we accidentally elected to Congress but hopefully not for long.

Greece is a cauldron of discontent caused by an abysmal economic situation, and from this cauldron has sprung not only the usual fascists and other extremists, but last weekend, actual Nazis in elected office with several ending up in Parliament. It turns out that Greeks by and large are not amused. The widespread shock and horror about Nazis emerging, as well as the very important recognition that these are the real deal…not just some people with extreme views and a penchant for angular designs in their fashion…has engendered the beginnings of a backlash.

From the Guardian:

Images of extremist parties strutting their stuff – this display celebrating the election result took place in Thessaloniki – have a certain apocalyptic fascination. Especially when Golden Dawn activists also reportedly yelled “Blood and honour” and sang martial anthems. They are not exactly hiding any echo of 20th-century political darkness – they also flaunt a symbol that unmistakably resembles a swastika.

There seems to be no reason for complacency or irony about what is happening here. This is the real thing, a political horror. And the social and economic factors behind it get ever worse. This week new figures revealed that youth unemployment in Greece reached 53.8% in February.

The Nazi echoes in images like this have hopefully done for Golden Dawn. It is reported that Greeks are shocked by the party’s true nature, as displayed since its election victory catapulted an obscure movement on to the national stage. Let’s hope so.

Dear loyal readers, quiet lurkers, constant commeters, and trolls,

On or before the 24th of May (hopefully not later) Scienceblogs.com will under The Branding. The Branding is not a phenomenon found in a cultish horror movie involving corn and a school bus, nor will it involve British schoolboys or a buried alien spacecraft. The Branding is when National Geographic’s “brand” is imprinted on this site, and we become something of a National Geographic project. From that point forward several things will be different on this blog, some of which I’ll mention below.

Between now and then there is a problem. All of the blog posts and comments that were posted prior to a date in late April have already been ported to the new platform and when The Branding happens, they will be there. But anything that has been, or will be, placed on this blog will not automatically become part of the new platform. It is possible for me to move old posts or place new blog posts on the new platform, but not comments.

So, comments you place on this blog between now and The Branding will not be preserved. Therefore, you might want to not make them.

UPDATE: I’m told that a solution to this problem is being worked on.

I know this is unusual, but there are reasons for it which I can explain roughly but I can’t answer questions about because I don’t have access to the independent IT firm hired to do this work. The bottom line is that the old MovableType platform was virtually intractable. I’m not sure how they ended up making the transition but it was not a simple export/import situation. There are rumors that wget and awk may have been used, that’s how bad things were.

Since you can’t comment on my posts, I don’t want to write any more posts on this blog until we are up and running. I may still post something now and then but more likely I’d ask you to visit and comment on the X Blog, which will of course be functioning perfectly for the whole time (I hope!). The X Blog is here.

The changes will include a new look and feel, no left sidebar that I put stuff on and I think no About page. Since that personalized stuff will be gone, I’ll be updating Gregladen.com to include that stuff. Commenting will be better managed. To comment on the new blog, probably, you’ll have to have a thing that looks like a real email address that will act, essentially, as your “password,” which will be approved so after you’ve commented once you’ll be able to keep commenting without problems. Unless, of course …. (well, never mind that).

The content of this blog will not change, nor will any of the policies … we are already working under the “new” methods and rules. However, there may be some more interaction with National Geographic’s other blogs and activities, if I chose to do that. NGS is not requiring anything, but there my be opportunities available that I’ll take up.

So now, we enter the big sleep. I am not going to turn commenting off because that always breaks things on this old movable type platform. Besides you may want to leave a comment or two knowing it will disapear later. Like when you write stuff on a wall you are about to paint over!

(I may regret that I said that.)

If you want to have a discussion about this that will not be erased, I’ve made a place for you to do that HERE.